The Afterlife Dysfunction

Robert Lanza has suggested that the universe springs from life. Life doesn't spring from the universe. He calls his theory "biocentrism."

He places biology above physics and chemistry to create a theory of everything.

Here's a popular look at it by a youtuber called "Athene."

Here is Lanza himself giving a lecture about his theory.

Russell Brand on God

If you are interested in the idea of a conscious universe I think that this is worth your consideration. Russell Brand responds to Stephen Fry's atheism... I know he takes a lot of heat for comparing himself to Jesus and Che, but he's very intelligent and I don't find much to disagree with here.

No offense to you atheists and anti-theists! Big tent, big tent...

The Three Phases of Anger

Some unknown redditor gave me the best Stoic advice of my life. The poster said something like "The first blush of anger is an impression; you can't do anything about that. The second step involves a decision. Will you act on it? The third step is the action and, if you submit anger, the result is beyond your control."

If you are the original poster please make a note of it and accept my heartfelt thanks.

Anyway, I was reminded of this advice when reading cleomedes' reply to a recent post and saw that he linked to this page, which contains the following quote from Seneca's "On Anger:"

"IV. Furthermore, that you may know in what manner passions begin and swell and gain spirit, learn that the first emotion is involuntary, and is, as it were, a preparation for a passion, and a threatening of one. The next is combined with a wish, though not an obstinate one, as, for example, “It is my duty to avenge myself, because I have been injured,” or “It is right that this man should be punished, because he has committed a crime.” The third emotion is already beyond our control, because it overrides reason, and wishes to avenge itself, not if it be its duty, but whether or no. We are not able by means of reason to escape from that first impression on the mind, any more than we can escape from those things which we have mentioned as occurring to the body: we cannot prevent other people’s yawns temping us to yawn; we cannot help winking when fingers are suddenly darted at our eyes. Reason is unable to overcome these habits, which perhaps might be weakened by practice and constant watchfulness: they differ from an emotion which is brought into existence and brought to an end by a deliberate mental act."

The original source material!

Cleomedes reminds us that "The Stoics divide emotions into two classes, impressions (sometimes 'feelings') and passions. See here. Impressions are emotions that happen to you, so trying to control them is a mistake, but passions are the result of your judgements, your beliefs about good and bad. These judgments are explicitly listed as things 'under your control'."

So if I have this right then this is how the process of becoming angry works:

First: You recieve an involuntary impression. "Bill calls me an idiot and I am angry." This is not in your control. You can no more avoid this first feeling of anger than you can avoid yawning. It's automatic.

Second: You assent to the impression or  you reject it. "Bill has wronged me. I will avenge myself." Or you could think "Bill made sounds with his mouth that aren't true. That's nothing to me." Or you could think "Bill has a point; perhaps I shouldn't play with matches at a gas station. I'll stop that." 

If you decide to avenge yourself then you have created a passion. If not life goes on as normal.

Third: You have created or avoided a passion. If you have created one it is no longer in your control. You tell Bill to go play in traffic and then you question his parentage. Now both of you are angry and things may escalate.

You only control Step 2. You may choose reason or passion.

I can't tell you how many times an understanding of this model has saved me real trouble. I have a problem with my temper, but now when I receive an angry impression I think about the three steps. I ride out the first impression, I reason my way through the problem and then I generally avoid creating a passion. Except when I don't.

An example: I don't like overstuffed drawers and cabinets. Yesterday I had a drawer that wouldn't close and felt that first rush of anger. I thought about the three steps and ARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! slammed the door shut, breaking a hinge. Then I felt stupid. So, not a perfect record...

Another example: On the other hand, a few days ago a person on the street swore at me. I hadn't done anything to deserve it (I hadn't done anything at all). I felt the first flush of anger, remembered the three steps, and determined that unwarrented aggression probably meant that the person was having a tough day. I said as much.

"Yeah," he said. "I just broke up with my girlfriend."

"That's rough," I said. "Good luck to you."

He nodded and seemed to feel better.

Now that could have turned ugly in a hurry. This person was looking for somebody to take his misery out on, but when I refused the bait and instead offered understanding it diffused him.

That's Stoicism in action. It's powerful.

You'll have to excuse me. I need to go buy a new hinge.

Preferred Indifferents: Bernini's Angels, by Kerry Muzzey

This is wonderful. I heard it on Pandora and was dumbstruck. This one isn't bad either. Or how about this?

* * *

Image by Bede735 is public domain

Preferred Indiferents: Strength Training

Epictetus (and I think several other Stoics) often refer to athletes in their metaphors, and they assume that we Stoics will get a moderate amount of exercise. It seems that in their time a trip to the gymnasium and the baths was a daily occurrence. If you have more specific information about daily life in the Roman Empire please do chime in.

So to that end I've been doing circuit training at a gym three times per week. I do five exercises (bench press, lat row, curl, triceps press, power runner) suggested by a trainer. I walked in and told him "I want to be in and out in a half hour." He set me up with this plan and we adjusted the weight so I could do 10 repetitions of each exercise. I've been at it four months and skipped only one day. It's become a habit.

I've asked several gym goers what a good benchmark to shoot for is to achieve a moderate level of fitness. Most have told me that a 200 pound bench press is pretty decent for the casual guy.

This article from Muscle and Fitness confirms it. The author says that if you can bench 200 you are stronger than 90% of men walking the earth.

Now I don't want to "win," but I do want a target to shoot for. According to this calculator with 10 repetitions of 135 pounds my max would be 180 pounds. I'll need to get a spotter to see if that's actually true, but it's kind of cool to know that, in theory, I have 20 pounds to go.

I am the farthest thing from an expert you'll find in the gym, but I can say with authority that the Stoic practice of getting a bit of exercise has been good for me.

Massimo Pigliucci's Meditation Regimen

This comes from Ryan Holiday's blog, "Meditations on Strategy and Life." Mr. Holiday conducted a very interesting and useful interview with Massimo Pigliucci, who seems to be one of the foremost Stoics of our time.

Holiday asks Pigliucci about his daily meditation practice. Here is the answer, condensed:


First: he contemplates the challenges he's likely to face that day. He contemplates which of the four cardinal virtues he's likely to call on (courage, self control, equanimity, wisdom).

Second: he visualizes Hierocles' Circle, picturing his concern for himself, then his family, then his friends, and then the world.

Third: he does premeditatio malorum... he visualizes a bad thing that might happen that day.

Fourth: he meditates on a Stoic Maxim.

Fifth: he ends the day with a Marcus Aurelius-syle journal, which is not intended for publication. He reviews the day's events and his own performance.


Pigliucci credits Stoic week with designing his practice, and says he's only modified it slightly to suit his own tastes.

Holiday's interview contains a number of other gems, but I'll let you read it for yourself.

Preferred Indifferent: Modern Classical Music

This article points the casual fan of classical music to nine modern composers who we may not be aware of. Since the readers of this blog may share an interest in high culture I thought I'd pass it along.

I had no idea that somebody had written an opera about Anna Nicole Smith...

The Parable of the Un-castrated Athlete

Discourses Book 1, Chapter 2, Verses 25-29 (Robin Hard's translation):

"It is in this way that a certain athlete behaved too, when he was in danger of dying if his genitals weren't cut off. His brother (who was a philosopher) came to him and said, 'Well brother, what are you planning to do? Are we to cut off this part of you and go to the gymnasium as usual?' But the athlete wouldn't submit to that, but set his mind against it and died. When someone asked, 'How did he do that? Was it as an athlete or as a philosopher?', Epictetus replied: As a man, and as a man who had been proclaimed as victor at Olympia, and had fought his corner there, and had passed his life in such places, rather than merely having oil smeared over him at Baton's training ground. But another man would be willing even to have his head cut off, if it were possible for him to live without a head. This is what is meant by acting according to one's character, and such is the weight that this consideration acquires among those who make a habit of introducing it into their deliberations. 'Come now, Epictetus, shave off your beard.' If I'm a philosopher, I'll reply: I won't shave it off. 'Then I'll have you beheaded.' If it pleases you to do so, have me beheaded."

What I take from this odd parable is that, in Epictetus's time, it was part of a boxer's character to have a set of wedding tackle. It was part of a philosopher's character to have a beard. Perhaps the boxer wouldn't mind cutting off a beard and perhaps the philosopher wouldn't mind cutting off the wedding tackle, but each held to the excellence of his own way of life despite all hazard.

Later on in the same chapter Epictetus tells us that he's no Socrates, but that if he tries to be Socrates and ends up "not too bad" it's good enough for him.

Maybe we're the people at Baton's training ground getting oiled up and trying to be the un-castrated athlete, though we have no real chance of actually attaining our aim, and maybe we'll learn to be content with being "not too bad."

I'm very open to further interpretation!

Self-esteem or Self-respect Part II

There is a lot of anger in Mr. Elam's article, isn't there?  For me it is a very un-Stoic article containing a very Stoic truth.

One of the things that I've found interesting about the "manosphere" is its embrace of Stoicism. A wide variety of movements within the manosphere umbrella seem to see our philosophy as a counterpoint to their perception of modern Feminism's embrace of emotion over reason. That said, there IS a lot of anger there, and anger isn't our way.* 

The value I take from the article itself is that self-esteem does seem to get more play in modern discourse than self-respect, but that self-respect is probably the worthier of the two concepts. That is very perceptive. As far as I know it's an original thought, and I don't run into too many of those. 

After I read the article I did a search of the Discourses and the Enchiridion on the subject of self-respect and found that Epictetus had a lot to say about it. Epictetus in fact seems to have considered self-respect to be one of the main attainments of a Stoic philosopher. I reference Chapter 24 of the Enchiridion to support this.

A very moving example of Stoic self-respect appears in Discourses 1.2. Florus approaches Agrippinus asking whether or not he (Florus) should attend one of Nero's grotesques. I take it that Florus considers the activity to be beneath his moral standards, but on the other hand nobody wants to provoke a violent madman.

"Go," says Agrippinus.

"But why aren't you going yourself?"

"Because I've never even considered it."

Agrippinus's boundaries are well-defined. His self-respect will not even admit the possibility of debasing himself. That is a thing of beauty. That is virtue. That is excellence, and Mr. Elam's article led me to it.

*It IS Mr. Elam's way... I can't remember where but I watched some of his videos and he considers anger to be an important component of the men's rights movement.

Self-esteem Or Self-respect?

Paul Elam has penned this article on the difference between self-esteem and self-respect, and I think it's worth a look.

For those who don't know Mr. Elam runs a Canadian organization called "A Voice For Men." AVFM is a men's rights organization. If you would like to have a conversation with or debate a men's rights activist you will find good hunting ground at their site. I'd prefer not to here. I will just say that I read widely, and that I have found some useful ideas in Mr. Elam's article.

Elam has some harsh things to say about the mental health industry's relationship with self-esteem, things which a reasonable person might disagree with, but what really stands out, for me, is this:

"Self-respect, on the other hand, is about how you treat yourself and what kind of treatment you will tolerate from others. It is clearly and unmistakably measurable. And more importantly, it is completely attainable regardless of outside influences."

That strikes me as a very stoic paragraph. Our philosophy teaches us that we are all a part of a great whole, that we are designed by nature* to exist in community, but that we ourselves are responsible for ourselves. We ourselves are sufficient. We have the power to bring ourselves in line with nature.

Self-respect must be a part of that. Mr. Elam has it exactly. If we value self-esteem as the more important of the two concepts then we place our fate in the hands of emotion, and emotion is subject to our impressions, not to our reason. If we value self-respect as the greater of the two then we place our faith in a set of principles. Principles are less subject to outside influence, and if they change the change is more apt to result from reasonable consideration of the evidence.

Mr. Elam follows this up with:

"That truth leads to an unassailable fact. You can instinctively handle most anything life throws at you if you respect yourself enough to keep your own best interests at the forefront."

I'm not sure that I should keep my own best interests at the forefront, but let's continue:

"In fact, I think it more than fair to say that you could take the average man, put him through a gender studies program, send him through a nightmare marriage with a personality disordered basilisk, take his children and his assets in the divorce and drive his own family and friends to blame him for the entire mess, and his self-respect would still be within relatively easy reach."

The meat of what he is saying is that self-respect is always attainable, no matter one's circumstances. That is deeply Stoic and I think it's true. It's a deeply reassuring thought.

How do we attain it? How do we reach this thing that is always within reach? According to Epictetus we achieve self-respect through the exercise of our own will. We just decide to do it and then we do it.

In Book 4, Chapter 9, Versus 15-18 of the Discourses Epictetus compares the student of Stoicism to an athlete being trained by a wrestling master:

"The boy has taken a fall: 'Get up,' he says, 'and resume the fight until you grow strong.' You too should think in some such way as that: you should know that there is nothing more tractable than the human mind. You only have to exert your will, and the thing comes about, and all is put right; whereas on the other hand, you only have to doze off, and all is lost. For ruin and deliverance alike come from within.

"'And after all that, what good will I gain?'"

"And what greater good could you seek than this? Where once you were shameless, you'll have self-respect; where once you were faithless, you'll become faithful; where once you were dissolute, you'll have self-control. If you're looking for anything other than things such as that, continue to act as you're now acting; for not even a god could still be able to help you."

Elam's hostility toward what he considers to be the excessive influence of modern feminism is what it is, and his views are not my own. His insights into self-esteem and self-respect, however, are a revelation to me. He has taken something which was hovering just beyond my ability to articulate and articulated it, and for that I am very thankful. 

*Whether it be conscious or unconscious

The Fire Burns Anyway

Discipline is good, and reason is good, but Zeno tells us that we are fire. We contain the divine spark that gave birth to the universe, and look at the universe! It's a swirling mass of energy! Things collide and explode... whole galaxies born in fire.

We have that in us. Maybe it burns brighter sometimes and darker at other times.

Today I met somebody in whom the fire burns very bright, but he is afraid of it. He wants to put it out because he fears failing. He won't risk anything... yet the fire burns. It would be easier for him if it didn't, but it does.

What a paltry thing to fear, failure, compared to the Divine fire.

I wish that he could see himself as I see him.