Who else got his soul saved by this guy?
I got mine saved by David Hume
>>7715194
H-Heraclitus anyone?
epictetus does it all better.
>>7715194
I hope you realize thinking is just coordinating action and don't use stoicism as an excuse to do nothing
Not being a 13 y/o girl overflowing with emotions- the manual.
It's pretty based
>>7715208
I hope that's ironic.
Descartes saved my soul.
>>7715247
No. Hume freed me from pseudo-knowledge
>>7715194
Epicurus helped me realize that life is better when you focus more on friends and being happy than fucking a wench.
>>7715276
Great you know the world's bullshit, how did that save your soul? It fucking didn't. Hume destroys souls, you don't even fucking exist, you have no fucking soul. Existence is a fucking meme.
>>7715286
>hedonism: faggot edition
>>7715228
I use it to clear my mind and remain peaceful and motivational. I got fucking tired of being a depressed faggot and loose myself to anxieties and angers over the most absurd things or whine about my life and waste my time instead of focusing on valuable things like the very few good friends I have, reading and writing. In general work to improve myself.
I prefer this book to the holy bible tbhbbq
I will definitely reread when I get older
>>7715194
I did too, friend anon. I don't have the talent or eloquence to describe the impact its had on my life (not being a fool with literary ambitions), but I've felt these past few weeks a satisfaction with life I haven't felt since I was maybe 15.
>>7715213
If I could have any piece of lost literature his book would be it
> not Epicuros
>>7715220
yeah all you niggers should realise that meditations is just a celebrity version of epictetus
plebs
how has your life changed? curious to know
>>7715194
Hey OP.
I've read about a third of this book as it was recommended to me. Till now I can't help but notice the huge amount of platitudes and sermons in it.
I also do not understand why he considers "pleasure" and "indulgence" as something that defiles a human's soul.
There are tons of conservative platitudes holding the traditional notions of righteousness in extremely high regard without any sort of justification.
Also stuff like:
>never act under selfishness, without forethought and with misgivings
makes me wonder why people consider this work so profound. enlighten me /lit/
>>7715291
That's really comforting man, memes are the purist form of...
>>7715797
>why people consider this work so profound
Not profound; it holds the simple truths.
When I was in high school my philosophy teacher recommended it to me. After I read it I told her it was good but that it was Common Sense - The Book. She chuckled :^)
>>7715797
Profound is the wrong word.
Seneca might be more up your ally or perhaps the early stoa if you want to a more epistemologically rigorous or otherwise complcaicated text on stoicism.
Meditations is chicken soup for the soul, you wont find that it helps you unless you're a whiney edgelord (you can also note how in effective the book is at changing people beyond a cosmetic level given how many folks will get pissed off by this comment)
>>7715194
What is a "soul" and what does it mean to say it was saved?
>>7715820
>It was good but it was common sense-the book.
That is precisely how I would describe it. Did she chuckle as an acknowledgement or as a condescending "lol, kids can't even literature" sentiment implying that you hadn't grasped it? I'm inclined to think that it might be the former.
>>7715824
>like Chicken soup for the soul
How is that a good thing to say a about a book? I'm not being a whiny edgelord. I'm just asking people to point out their merits in contrast to what I've pointed out about the book.
>>7715872
>Did she chuckle as an acknowledgement or as a condescending "lol, kids can't even literature" sentiment implying that you hadn't grasped it? I'm inclined to think that it might be the former.
It was a mix of both. We discussed it briefly.
>>7715213
True patrician
>>7715194
Except Stoics didn't believe in the immortality of the soul.
Soul status: unsaved.
Aurelius is a very good introduction to Stoic thought and how it can be used practically. It is a good bridge to Epictetus, Seneca, and the other Stoics. I would actually advise someone new to stoicism to start with either Aurelius or Cicero, tbqh, as they are 'easier' than others.
I do think that Aurelius made a worthwhile contribution of his own by noting that regardless of whether or not you believe in the essential order or essential randomness of the universe, pursuing a stoic life is still better than not.
Meh, meditations has some okay aphorisms but stoicism in general is a very boring way to live in the same sense that pure hedonism is also boring.
Stoicism to me feels too much like Christianity without the Christ. Same with Buddhism and all of the other systems of detachment.
>>7716075
What way of living seems better to you, anon?
>>7716080
However I want.
This manifests itself as a generally Heraclitian understanding of the nature of reality (I find Taoism has a lot in common with some of his surviving work and also lean on this philosophy to a degree) combined with reflection aimed at achieving a degree of self overcoming.
I don't plan a lot, I don't set material goals, only intellectual ones. I allow the world to flow over me and in reflection figure out how I should bend to it and where I should offer resistance.
It does have a bit in common with stoicism in theory, but in practice I quite enjoy attachments, I like pleasure and my mind produces its most perverse, degenerate thoughts in chaos, not through inner peace. And this perverse degeneracy is far superior to the clean thoughts I have, both in terms of providing for my own entertainment and for that of others.
Self-control is overrated. To be free of suffering is overrated. The stoic closes himself off to orgiastic indulgence, both in the mind and body, as a means of avoiding tragedy of his own creation. In doing so ensures he will not know the highest heights of what the human experience has to offer.
>>7715865
stfu faggot
>>7715382
>philosophical discourse: don't any friends edition
>>7716131
4 him
>>7715194
This book is overrated as fuck
Even Letters from a Stoic is better
If you want the best of the best when it comes to Stoicism, read Epictetus
Friendly reminder that Marcus Aurelius was cucked by his wife, who he covered up crimes for, and later had worshiped as a goddess. If that weren't bad enough, he let the Roman Empire fall under the whims of an oppressive imbecile who wanted to be glorified as a gladiator. Commodus almost certainly wasn't even his own son.
So I would take with a soldier's salary of salt whether to take his Meditations seriously.
The book makes me wonder what the fuck was he experiencing so that he needed to write down "d-don't hate anyone" a thousand times
This book is one I often refer to in difficult times
It's just great advice, simple and applicable
But here are some questions I have with stoicism
By adhering to logic and denying passions, how do you motivate yourself to move up the social ladder or incite self improvement?
If denying some bodily pleasure makes you unhappy, but it adheres to logic, was it really worth it? Is a different kind of pleasure obtained?
If you follow stoicism tightly, don't you just bind yourself to a life of serving some kind of larger social end? What about the self?
I am beginning to think that stoicism could have been aimed at people in power or with wealth and influence, where "acting out" in pursuing pleasure or blind could have larger consequences on a lot of people where following logic and order and a higher social end would bring about goodness
>>7715797
>I also do not understand why he considers "pleasure" and "indulgence" as something that defiles a human's soul.
because pleasure is always fleeting and it makes you crave it
>>7716422
But he doesn't even explain how to mitigate craving other than to avoid it. Why should I read him when Buddha's writings are available?
>>7716399
>If you follow stoicism tightly, don't you just bind yourself to a life of serving some kind of larger social end? What about the self?
Have you only read Meditations? You should read Letters from a Stoic. It will answer a lot of your questions.
>>7716316
all ten pages of him?
>>7716393
As far as I know, he wrote it for himself, some time before his death
noko
>>7717578
there's more than the handbook you pleb cunt
>>7716343
Why does this invalidate his philosophy? Why can't morally deficient people have good ideas? Just because someone is a hypocrit (he wasn't) their ideas aren't allowed to have merit? Fox News pls go
>>7719527
If you can explain why editions of Meditations fail to mention what I posted, I'll sincerely offer my views on that.
>>7715291
>Existence is a fucking meme.
And this is exactly why Hume is so great
>>7719551
No this argument goes beyond the meditations. Trying to discredit ideas by attacking the personal lives of their thinkers is Fox News-tier idiocy. Even bad people have good ideas.
As for the Meditations and Aurelius' life, it wasn't meant to be a book for the masses. It's his personal notes about shit. The 2 second version of stoicism is essentially that you should temper as fully as you can your own personal faculties and accept that external things are beyond your control.
I don't see where any of that is contradicted by what you wrote above.
>>7716393
>The book makes me wonder what the fuck was he experiencing so that he needed to write down "d-don't hate anyone" a thousand times
because resentment is being sad twice. resentment says that you take seriously your pains and whine about it, which increases the pain. the sole way to avoid suffering from pain is to not take it at all
Only the dhamma gives a way to establish equanimity for good.
>>7719641
Kafka did not destroy his works before his death, though he claimed he wanted to. He was insincere. He fully expected his friend to publish them.
>>7715291
based hume
>>7715194
It was this guy for me :)
>>7719656
>Preached compassion and asceticism
>Bizarrely kicked an old lady down a flight of steps, and had a ludicrous number of sexual relations with teenage girls.
Im reading On the Shortness of Life now in pursuit of my soul saving but it kind of irritates me even though there are great points.
My irritation comes from his emphasis on leisure. Like this dude is just pointing out everything we "waste" our time on, aka running errands, putting up with certain people for a little while, working. Like idk what this guys life was like where he could literally do nothing all day and devout all his time to everything he wanted, but real life isnt like that lol
I also keep laughing that he says these things about grasping life and doing it for yourself but then mentions slaves in a casual tone
>>7719673
A philosopher can still be right even if he at times fails to live up to his own (very high) standards.
>>7719684
So he was right in thinking people would be better off without being capable of thought?
>>7719682
You need to read books with eye for the time and culture of the author. No one, writes books for you personally. Certainly not Roman Emperors long dead, try a biography to see why he he thinks like this and then realise its going to be 20 years before you can truely understand him anyway as your own life has to start passing away to comprehend it all.
>>7719728
> eye for the time and culture of the author
>No one, writes books for you personally
Yeah I realized this. I was just trying to use some of his ideas in todays world, or my own life. But knowing that most of us have to work no matter what made me start to wonder about him and yeah the time period.
Maybe just finding a job you enjoy and are passionate about is the answer to todays dilemma of wasting time. At least thats how I am looking at it.
>>7719728
Your argument comes down to:
>I know things, that you do not, and that is why you're wrong.
And you don't even write anything that convincingly demonstrates that you actually know what you're talking about. So your "advice" is pretty useless.
>>7719728
Somehow I doubt that you've read any of the writers mentioned above. Either that or all that reading taught you nothing.
This guy.
>>7715208
>Scottish Faggot who can't understand basic theology
>saving anything
>>7715648
Why? it's nowhere near as deep.
>>7715194
Augustine saved my soul.
>>7719693
Of course.
>>7715286
This. Epicurus put "Bros before Hoes" into a philosophy.
>>7716279
Yeah, me too.
