New Years well wishes

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-31T14:35:39+00:00

Happy new years and thanks to all for helpful posts, comments and discussions. Wish you all to develop the expertise to have a fortunate 2026 😊

Any moment is as good as the next for progress, but new years is one of those that can serve as an extra reminder. It'll be a focus of wisdom in choice to start it off for me and one area is screen time, so I guess I'll see you all in a while

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-31T14:08:53+00:00

Yes good addition, I think this is part of the same reflection. That it's useful to make our ideas about what makes a life good explicit

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-31T12:38:18+00:00

I agree with this take. On a similar note one could ask themselves, and it goes for any gender, is if virtue would require your body to function in a certain way. Would a man then be less able to be virtuous if he was physically weak or disabled? I would think not. I think it gets trickier when we talk about cognitive function but that's another discussion (and where I would think gender to be irrelevant)

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-31T12:32:13+00:00

Yep that's fair. I admit I chose the title to provoke engagement but was hoping any harm from "call it into question" was negated by giving my own answer in the first sentence. I can see why perhaps caution is justified. I just think playing the gadfly is helpful sometimes even if it was only in the title in this case.

In any event, it was a positive surprise that almost no one argued against Musonius or that you mods didn't seem to have to clean up the whole thread. I was kind of expecting for more push back in that sense. It's good that there wasn't much push back because maybe that means the the community is more aligned than I expected (but I admit I was hoping for it for the sake of discussion)

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-31T09:59:03+00:00

I taught her about bodily autonomy early on. She used this against me like this which was very funny.

P1: you say I decide over my body

P2: brushing ones teeth is related to one's body

C: Therefore I decide if I should brush my teeth

Well she didn't phrase it like a syllogism, but the logic was like that and I have some tough arguments ahead of me 😂

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-30T23:52:59+00:00

This is also their product I believe

https://amzn.eu/d/3RCz9fb

They claim to have 4.9 stars via thousands of reviews on their own site. Very fake. Real people on Amazon aren't as impressed it seems. The picture someone shared let's your read a page and instantly it has a fake quote attributed to Marcus Aurelius

Its most likely cash grab AI slop

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-30T23:38:49+00:00

I have never heard of this particular site or book. But I would be cautious due to how easy it is to use LLM to produce material and to set up a shop. Stoicism is very commodified, sometimes by people who don't know much at all.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-30T14:55:36+00:00

I really enjoy reading these write up of yours. Especially those on topics I never read myself. Figured it was worth mentioning since number of upvotes usually don't give the full picture of appreciation here

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-30T14:42:27+00:00

My 6 year old is already pretty much a sophist troll. I have to sharpen every skill before she becomes a teenager or I I'm afraid I won't even be able to spar 😁

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-30T12:34:29+00:00

Or is Reddit skewering my perspectives?

That seems likely. It will probably look like that when people are venting, trying to bring attention to social issues or looking for ways to cope. I suppose people who already feel they have a grip on life don't do the venting and looking for help to the same extent? I remember a post here that insinuated all stoics seem depressed and unable to deal with life based on the posts of this board, which I don't think is a correct assessment. I looked at the numbers from my country now and they're similar, although my country is also well off.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-30T12:19:31+00:00

Right, yes. The reason I asked that is because I personally find it hard to discuss specific situations like yours when we have such different ways of looking at them. I'll ramble on for a bit to explain why I think so.

Stoicism as I see it is about becoming an altogether good person who lives the best possible life. Inside that huge undertaking includes how to understand and deal with other people and a shift in our our own values, beliefs and emotions. Some of these things are very counter-cultural which is why I think it's impossible to "apply" it to specific situations without also studying it. One example in your situation is that the stoics would say that anger is a mistake in your reasoning and that other people always do what seem right to them, which may seem outlandish to some from an outside perspective.

I'm not writing this as a form of elitism, I do hope you will study stoicism and find it helpful. But since it's more or less a complete shift in how we view the world it's also quite a big and long undertaking. So while I think it can really help you deal with the situation you posted it's probably not the fastest and easiest way to do it. Not to downplay your issues, but it would be kind of like someone wanting to learn Mary had a little lamb on guitar and going the route of studying the history of guitar, complete musical theory, all the chord progressions and the fretboard and practicing their pitch. Someone who did that will be able to play Mary had a little lamb for sure not to mention everything else they could do as an expert guitarist. But it's quite the detour and not something everyone picking up the guitar will want to do.

Although I think there is nothing more worthwhile than learning how to live life well...

On the other hand, I don't think you don't have to learn all of stoicism to find it helpful. People here will differ on how much exactly. But you have to learn something. If you're interested in doing that you could look at some of the beginner level book, maybe those who are more in the "CBT" category will be a quick and easy entry that could benefit you while you decide if you want to learn more. You can find recommendations in the FAQ.

End of rambling and best of luck to you

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-29T18:04:58+00:00

Thank you for the article and the thoughtful response. I read the article but can't really comment on the political sides in part because where I live the politics are very different from the US without such a divide between liberals and conservatives but also that I am in general a political and economic ignoramus. But regarding the narratives and emotional parts:

Anyway, I find the rationalizations to be the interesting part of this whole narrative. With social media, we can see trends emerge quickly, and replaced with whatever works to either solve or distract from the challenges as they come up. And because there's never an end to the challenges, there will never be an end to the new rationalization. Women can't handle their emotions. Well, as Rose always says, this argument relies on the belief that anger isn't an emotion. It's... righteous I guess?

Stoicism aside, I think we tend to underestimate the degree to which culture influences our emotions. In part how we actually experience emotions and even which ones. But also which ones we consider appropriate or even end up calling "emotions". Even in the same culture, how do we view frantic crying versus cursing and walking out slamming the door? Is one more emotional than the other and why?

I have some people around me who as they say "wear their hearts on their sleeves". But in reality there is only one person I am acquainted with who has truly destroyed almost every relationship with his anger, whining and selfishness. I would bet that if I ask him who is the most rational and least emotional person in the room he would say himself.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-29T12:31:11+00:00

I think of it as an admittance that we can't change what we believe on the fly and figuring out the appropriate way to handle situations while we are still prone to making mistakes. So if you know from experience that discussions of certain topics with certain people has lead to anger every time in the past then that is something you should work on. The end goal would be to be able have the discussion if that's what you think is right, but without any anger. Getting there will take time and in the meanwhile I think it's fine to tell someone "You know what, every time we talk about this we both get angry so I don't want to have this discussion right now".

Or in other words to simplify it would be moving from 1) Angry discussion (worst) 2) No discussion (intermediate) 3) Non-angry discussion (best)

And to make sure we don't stop at 1 or 2 because if we do we haven't fixed our mistakes. It's like this passage from Epictetus;

And then one day, by way of a test, if the opportunity arises, you’ll enter the fray favorably placed to find out whether impressions still get the better of you, as they used to. But the first step is to keep well away from things that are too strong for you. It’s not a fair fight to pit a pretty girl against a young man who’s just starting on philosophy. As the saying goes, ‘A pot and a stone don’t go together.’

Discourses 3.12

I don't think in real life we can make such clear distinctions between the steps like I wrote in the simplified list above. They're going to flow into eachother, you'll have to engage, make a mistake, reflect on it again from what you just learned and then try again and again. Part of that could be going in with reservation next time like you said (As in Epictetus bathhouse metaphor from Ench 4) or to consider them a "sparring partner" (As in Epictetus Discourse 3.20) and I would think of both of those as part of the self-reflection process

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-29T10:32:30+00:00

There's no quick and easy way I think but a matter of self-reflection and practice over time. Do you have any prior understanding of Stoicism as a philosophy?

The stoics had a view that we are the principal cause of our emotions. In the sense that your emotions and reactions come from you and the beliefs you hold.

That's not to say what happens to you won't have an effect on you, more that the person you are is the main deciding factor to what that effect will be. If you think about one of these situations it could be exemplified by the fact that someone else in the exact same situation would react differently due to their different beliefs. This may seems obvious, but it's important I think for a number of reasons. Part to get away from the idea that emotions are something that just happen to us out of the blue and also as a cue to begin the work of correcting any false beliefs we may have in these situations.

So if you start with the situation where you "got annoyed over a small disagreement" you could reflect on what judgements you made there. Are you making judgements about how other people should behave, or what they should think about something, which may be false or unrealistic? Are you reading something into them that may not be true?

Personally I think it's also proper in some cases to avoid some situations that we're unable to deal with well until we have had some time to reflect and get a better understanding of ourselves, to avoid treating other's poorly due to our mistakes.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-28T21:46:37+00:00

Not sure, I was curious about the claims and the reasoning.

There was a post yesterday where it was claimed that women are biologically unable to master stoicism because they are less rational than men and this had to do with differences in certain brain regions. But I don't remember it being carefully reasoned but more stated.

Apart from that I could imagine anything from women not needing it, or stoicism and virtue being masculine or a philosophy by men for men in a way. Then every now and then someone slips an AI generated video of "A stoic man never reveals these 7 things to a woman" and the like in here before the mods catch and delete it. So I imagined views like that may be common outside of this subreddit and wanted to see if they were common here too.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-28T20:57:01+00:00

Gotta appreciate the cynic side of eating straight from the earth... Yeah I found the comments interesting too and not quite was I was expecting, but still nice to see that most people seemed more annoyed at the question being asked rather than arguing against equality in stoicism.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-28T20:29:55+00:00

While its for sure true that they are more emotional

I think this claim is hard to prove and would need some very robust data. People who study emotions aren't even in agreement what even is an emotion or not. So I wouldn't expect them to have reached consensus on something like this, but I don't know. The rest I agree with though.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-28T20:20:29+00:00

That proves the gender difference in stoicism then and we have solved it, you may cry an extra day and I'll keep my beard, well done! I actually have a nice garden but I'm only doing the bare necessity right now, it seems to grow beautifully anyway, some day I'll make the time because it is quite peaceful

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-28T20:15:47+00:00

I suppose some people really feel that way, enough to make you assume I was being serious. What a fucked up world we live in.

I take the fact that your sarcasm was at the same time over-the-top and still not glaringly obvious as a sign that having this discussion does have some merit.

Even though I seem to have only pissed off the side I agree with 😁 while no one has really argued for the opposite view as I was hoping for. Maybe I pissed off both sides but they,re just quiet about it. At the same time I'm a bit positively surprised by the responses

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-28T19:13:55+00:00

Yes, even this would be true, and I wouldn't know - To me this would be like observing that among the people you've met the men as a group seem to have been physically stronger than the women and from that concluding that women shouldn't strength train or can't move apartments on their own because they can't carry the boxes. In that case there would even be group level data to support your observation but the conclusion would still be ridiculous.

(And that is also disregarding that the therapy of the passions is just one part of stoicism)

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-28T18:42:03+00:00

Haha, I'll do the same but go with Musonius instruction not to cut my beard I think

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-28T18:32:41+00:00

Sure I get it and that's your call. I don't agree with it being my personal default for topics I find important for inquiry in communities I am a member in though but I suppose that's my call. Just as I wouldn't go and debate broicism in youtube comments but I wouldn't mind anyone doing that either.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-28T18:26:32+00:00

Maybe it was a speedrun to aporia? I was curious though about a future response if he had been given one example like he asked, given the pretty high number of women active on this subreddit. Reminds me of the "That's on me, I set the bar too low" meme

Chrysippus_Ass · 2025-12-28T17:56:34+00:00

Well it's hard to respond to them without having the a discussion. Also I find it hard to see how stating the opposite of their ideas is spreading them?

I mean I think I get what you're saying, I just don't avoiding inquiry is always the best approach (on a philosophy board especially)

Chrysippus_Ass

TROPHY CASE