(독서) Daily Stoic 12월 6일 THE SWORD DANGLES OVER YOU

"Keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible-by doing so, you'll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire."-EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 21 ("매일 죽음과 유배를 눈앞에 두고, 그리고 모든 끔찍해 보이는 것들을 생각하십시오. 그렇게 하면 절대로 비열한 생각을 하지 않을 것이며, 지나친 욕망도 없을 것입니다."-에픽테토스, 엥키리디온 21장)   Political winds could change in an instant, depriving you of the most basic freedoms you take for granted. Or, no matter who you are or how safely you've lived your life, there's someone out there who would rob and kill you for a couple dollars. As it's written in the timeless Epic of Gilgamesh:   "Man is snapped off like a reed in the canebrake! The comely young ...

"Anything that can be prevented, taken away, or coerced is not a person's own-but those things that can't be blocked are their own." -EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.24.3 (“막을 수 있거나, 빼앗기거나, 강요될 수 있는 것은 사람 자신의 것이 아닙니다. 하지만 막을 수 없는 것만이 진정으로 자신의 것입니다.” - 에픽테토스, 《담화록》 3.24.3 )   The conservationist Daniel O'Brien has said that he doesn't "own" his several-thousand-acre buffalo ranch in South Dakota, he just lives there while the bank lets him make mortgage payments on it. It's a joke about the economic realities of ranching, but it also hints at the idea that land doesn't belong to one individual, that it will far outlast us and our descendants. Marcus Aurelius used to say that we don't own anything and that even our lives are held in trust.   We may claw and fight and work to own things, but those things can be taken away in a second. The same goes for other things we like to think are "ours" but are equally precarious: our status, our physical health or strength, our relationships. How ...

"Philosophy does not claim to get a person any external possession. To do so would be beyond its field. As wood is to the carpenter, bronze to the sculptor, so our own lives are the proper material in the art of living."-EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.15.2 (“철학은 어떤 외적 소유물을 얻기 위한 도구라고 주장하지 않습니다. 그렇게 하는 것은 철학의 범위를 벗어나는 일입니다. 목수에게는 나무가, 조각가에게는 청동이 작업의 재료이듯이, 우리 자신의 삶이야말로 '사는 기술'에서 다룰 올바른 재료입니다.” - 에픽테토스, 《담화집》, 1.15.2 )   Philosophy is not some idle pursuit appropriate only for academics or the rich. Instead, it is one of the most essential activities that a human being can engage in. Its purpose, as Henry David Thoreau said a few thousand years after Epictetus, is to help us "solve the problems of life, not only theoretically but practically." This aligns nicely with Cicero's famous line: "To philosophize is to learn how to die."   You're not reading these quotes and ...

"Let each thing you would do, say or intend be like that of a dying person."-MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 2.11.1 (“당신이 하고자 하는 일, 말하거나 의도하는 모든 것이 죽음을 앞둔 사람의 것처럼 하라.”-마르쿠스 아우렐리우스, 『명상록』 2.11.1)   Have you ever heard some ask: "What would you do if you found out tomorrow that you had cancer?" The question is designed to make you consider how different life might be if you were suddenly given just a few months or weeks to live. There's nothing like a terminal illness to wake people up.   But here's the thing: you already have a terminal diagnosis. We all do! As the writer Edmund Wilson put it, "Death is one prophecy that never fails." Every person is born with a death sentence. Each second that passes by is one you'll never get back.   Once you realize this, it will have a profound impact on what you do, say, and ...

"Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day.... The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time."-SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 101.7b-8a (“마치 우리가 삶의 끝자락에 도달한 것처럼 마음을 준비합시다. 아무것도 미루지 맙시다. 매일 삶의 장부를 정산합시다. … 매일 삶의 마지막을 완성하는 이는 결코 시간이 부족하지 않습니다.”-세네카, 『도덕 편지』, 101.7b-8a) "Live each day as if it were your last" is a cliché. Plenty say it, few actually do it. How reasonable would that be anyway? Surely Seneca isn't saying to forsake laws and considerations-to find some orgy to join because the world is ending. A better analogy would be a soldier about to leave on deployment. Not knowing whether they'll return or not, what do they do? They get their affairs in order. They handle their business. They tell their children or their family that they love them. They don't have time for quarreling or petty matters. And then in the ...