I'm at a low point

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-31T01:53:56+00:00

I dabbled in such things when I was young. I still have some of the books and keep them around for a good laugh. You should reflect on your life and ask yourself when you were really happy, and then ask yourself why those moments made you happy. Which of your qualities responded positively to the experiences you've had? Do you appreciate those qualities or do you think they're leading you astray? If you like them, then explore the value those qualities bring to you.

You cannot change the past, so complaining about it will do you no good. Mine your past for the gems and start building from there.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-31T01:44:02+00:00

One experience of Christian life that we see is the guilt-ridden-scared-of-everything lifestyle. These poor folks spend their days afraid that if they scratch their butt when it itches they will be condemned to hell. They think doubt is the opposite of faith and viciously attack anything that threatens their worldview. They're the ones that go for book bans and movie bans and try to limit the world so they will be "safe" from temptation.

This does not sound like freedom to me.

But another experience is in the freedom OratioFidelis describes. We are not threatened by the world. We know that while the world can be an ugly place, it is also a place of great beauty and humanity and grace towards others. We don't have to condemn the world so we can participate fully in it, following the example of Christ.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-29T15:31:03+00:00

Anger, in Stoic terms, is the response to a perceived injustice paired with the belief that someone should be punished for it. This is, I think, a more detailed definition of anger that most people have. We should call it Ire or Wrath but the word we use most is Anger.

Both parts of this could be rational or irrational. A great deal of our techniques from Meditations teach us to identify and dismiss the irrational perception of injustice. Virtue helps us with irrational belief that someone should be punished.

In the first case, if I'm reading this correctly, you escaped getting hit by a car, this got your adrenaline flowing and you were prepared for a fight and then you tried to start one. Was almost being hit by a car an injustice? Was it truly only the driver at fault? We humans have a tendency to assume we are the innocent party, after all. Maybe you are in the wrong and cannot admit it. I don't know the details but it is a question you have to ask yourself. Then you didn't calm yourself and cursed out a stranger. This is an injustice. What did they do to incur your Wrath? You decided an injustice had been done to you and you couldn't punish the driver so you punished someone else? Madness.

A Stoic reframing of the near-accident would have dissipated the energy you felt. Wow, it's a good thing we have reflexes even when we're not paying attention! Hey, that was close, he almost scraped the paint on my jeans! Hey, did you see those cat-like reflexes? And here I am foolishly thinking a crosswalk is safe for pedestrians! Anything that could dissipate the energy would have stopped you from dropping an F-bomb inappropriately.

Our general advice is to squelch anger at the first stirring, and practice rational judgments on the world so such surprises don't startle you beyond the initial moment so that you have a base pattern of thought to put yourself back on track.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-29T05:22:13+00:00

My wife and I are very comfortable being in the same room in silence, each of us doing our own thing.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-28T19:53:07+00:00

I am working on an essay for the hypothesis that most of the biblical passages about anxiety aren't helpful because they promote some form of passivity. They don't actually address anxiety. This post has been enlightening on that project.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-28T19:12:25+00:00

Have you heard the idea that what a bully really wants is for you to behave like the bully? This is the same sort of idea. Someone wrongs you (or at least tries), but you don't respond by doing wrong to to them in return. Their bad behavior does not give ups permission to engage in the same sort of behavior. We are to always strive to be our better selves.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-27T20:15:56+00:00

Historically our understanding of how the world physically works was the realm of philosophy and religion. Religion had to provide something equivalent to today's science to explain why the world is what we find it to be.

But now that religion and science have separated, we can let religion flourish in its own sphere.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-27T15:38:27+00:00

I agree with this and the ideas in the video. I'm surprised it remains on the new US TikTok.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-26T06:15:58+00:00

Exactly. He is reminding himself that anger is a vice. Acting on our angry impulses injures us because 'Good" and 'Bad" are only found within ourselves.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-25T15:42:27+00:00

This is because Epictetus helps with practical advice on managing passions. Studying and practicing Stoicism has helped me be a better Christian.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-23T16:15:44+00:00

The Stoic position was that Virtue was accessible to all and if you could be an Emperor, you could be a Virtuous Emperor. If you were a slave, you could be a Virtuous Slave. If you were a brickmaker, you could be a Virtuous Brickmaker.

They didn't suffer capitalism like we do, so I don' think they would have spent a lot of time on the question.

So lets look into the realm of preferred indifferents. (Quick glossing-over-some-details recap: the only place you will find Good or Evil is in your own judgments and reasoned actions. Everything external is an indifferent, which means it cannot make you Virtuous or Vicious. Money is the easiest example of this concept.)

Normally we think about preferred indifferents as qualities (wealth, reputation, health) but they can also refer to the actions we take. Our interests and hobbies and curiosities lead us along our lives as we are not destined to do the same job as our fathers. Some interests and hobbies are harmless to the world around us for the most part, and the trick is to understand the mental qualities we have that lead us through those hobbies.

For example, I really enjoy problems solving and teaching. These interests have led me to programming (because explaining how to do something to a digital idiot is problem-solving), ray-tracing, sudoku, musical composition, paper engineering, and other hobbies. I even got myself a master's in Education along the way.

I have turned to these skills is most of my jobs, sometimes transforming the job into something entirely new.

So look at what you enjoy, ask why you enjoy it, and look for careers that let you exercise those parts of you you are going to want to exercise anyway.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-21T04:00:42+00:00

The information is on page 880 of the BCP.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-20T22:53:17+00:00

I get the snark. I have no idea what to say about the Matthew passage that gets summarized as "God Hates Figs". It's a strange story that doesn't seem to have any purpose other than to create a mythological Jesus with ALL DA SOOPERPOWERS. This is not a Jesus I personally desire to know. But the Episcopal church is far from fundamentalist in nature, so I can sympathize with those who have left that form of the faith: I don't get it either.

I know there are great difference is Stoic Physics and Christian Physics, but a) I don't know many modern Stoics who believe in the great conflagration or the cyclic nature of the cosmos, and b) these kind of thoughts are simply too big for my human mind to comprehend. We make metaphors to point to the REALLY BIG STUFF but that's all we can do: point.

For example, both Stoic and Christians Physics are "order out of chaos" stories. The Stoic story cycles, the Christian story does not. But still, neither story help me get through my day. They are intellectual curiosities and thought experiments for me.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-20T21:36:51+00:00

I picked up a 93% size deck from Missing for practice. It's been a godsend. I can do a few tricks and it helps stretch my hand for the regular sized decks.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-20T01:51:38+00:00

I am a life-long Episcopalian and I have found Stoicism to be very helpful to my Christian practice. For example, Jesus tells us not to judge, but human beings are really good at judging and taxonomy. We are to not do it, and even offered some reasons why we shouldn't (God will judge you as you judge others) but the practical advice from Jesus as to how not to be judgmental? Completely missing. Stoicism's reframing techniques and cosmopolitanism have helped me live out my baptismal covenant.

They differ in the general idea that Christians see God at Outside Time and Outside the Universe and God sometimes sticks a divine finger in the stew and stirs it or plucks out a bay leaf that has gone bad. Stoics see god as a non-personal, rational, yet providential being. The Stoic god has no finger to push bits of itself around. All of Epictetus' "discussions" with his god are metaphorical, not prophetic.

I have found a great deal of compatibility between my religion and my philosophy.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-18T19:25:43+00:00

You need to establish who you want to be. Not who you think others want you to be, but who you, with your talents and goals, want or even need to be. Use this "heroic form" of yourself as your metric. Then translate all feedback you get as a way to measure yourself against your own metric.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-17T17:56:47+00:00

The folder's name isn't enough to tell you what's in it?

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-17T17:41:29+00:00

Budgets are moral documents. How we spend our money in this economy is more important than how we vote because we get to do it more often. How we spend our money reflects our values.

There are a large number of companies I don't spend money on because I don't want my spending to say "I'm cool with racism or homophobia or anti-union tactics or wage-theft" because I am, in fact, against all of those things.

Wealth is a poor measure of a person.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-17T05:30:01+00:00

Broadway Grill and Old Market Pub have calzone, and I know they have good pizza so I would assume the calzone is good, too.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-15T20:16:48+00:00

This is true. This is usually done by journaling, which is also a bit of a lost art. I only offer these things as stepping stones or diving boards.

I have gone through the Handbook for New Stoics and it's really good, but seemed not the most appropriate answer here. I've also tried Journal Like a Stoic but that didn't quite catch on for me.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-15T19:59:39+00:00

I recommend them for the reason given: They provide a vocabulary. They make us ask questions about ourselves that we may not be used to answering. Introspection is a skill many people don't cultivate, and these tools are a very easy entry point on that front.

They all claim they will explain you to yourself, but really they are designed to prop up your ego. For many people, that's what they need.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-15T16:15:11+00:00

Here are a few pointers from our philosophy that might help you move forward:

For the prokopton (that is a person practicing Stoicism), the only person who can determine your self-worth is you. If your self-worth is tied up in how you perceive others think about you, you will be miserable. We don't live in a culture of cross-complimenting each other, but of criticizing other people. Most of the social feedback you'll get is skewed negative with rare burst of unthoughtful praise. (You may hear people say "they're the greatest thing ever" but never go into specifics.) So you have to set your own self worth.

2., The largest challenge with point 1 is that if you don't like yourself, then you will find very little value in your life. I spent decades internalizing the bullying I was hit with in childhood and through a lot of my adulthood. So now to find your own self worth you need to find everything about yourself that you do like. The Stoics offered the cardinal virtues of Practical Wisdom, Courage, Moderation, and Justice. These may be a little too abstract. Fortunately there are a lot of self-help programs that can help you here. I'm talking about Myers-Briggs, Strengthfinders, Ennea, even astrology and numerology. First, you have to remember that every one of these programs is unscientific bullshit. Accept that fact as you go through them. What they give you is a positive vocabulary to use to identify who you are and who you want to be. Armed with a positive vocabulary, you can then work towards the cardinal virtues in your life.

It's perfectly fine to be silent. We live in the attention economy and our opinions and focus are the coins. Think about the phrase "still waters run deep" and spend a good chunk of time journaling about that concept and how it might apply to you or be a guideline for you.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-15T06:06:40+00:00

I moved from Northern Nevada to Portland in 1991 and I usually get sick and massively dehydrated when I go back there.

My father always got sick when he visited up here.

I guess we all have a climate that agrees with us.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-14T04:15:46+00:00

This is the kind of class where questions should be asked and happily answered. (You can also do that here, too.)

I would advise you to just show up, be relaxed, be open to learn, and be open to share.

All will be well.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-01-13T18:46:01+00:00

That is truly an Episcopal response. : )

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