Getting angry at things is easy, understanding one’s anger is hard, but by practicing the hard part you can become a better human. As always, it’s useful to learn from the work of people that came before us. Donald Robertson and Zé Nuno Fraga wrote and illustrated a graphic novel
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Writings of J. Todd Ring: Stoicism: A Philosophy of Powerlessness
Stoicism is recently faddish and in vogue, but it is fashionable only to those who don’t understand it. It is not surprising that Stoicism is attractive to many people now, in the same way that many people are attracted to a death fetish: Stoisism is a philosophy of fatalism, and
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Stoicism and Slave Mentality
Stoicism is a sordid philosophy of grim forbearance in the face of a rigidly deterministic fatalism devoid of all agency or hope. People who have no hope gravitate to it, for it offers no hope, but only the promised power to endure. Unfortunately it seeped through Christianity, and through all
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Boethius, Stoicism and The Consolation of Philosophy
While I would recommend Boethius, and the Consolation of Philosophy, to all, I would not recommend Stoicism to anyone, for two reasons: 1. It encourages a banishment of feeling and emotion, and an unfeeling indifference to both pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow – a kind of psychic numbness, which,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Tired of Being Sane? Try Hypersanity
Being considered normal is a lot of work and can lead to a lot of stress, yet it’s something that we all strive for. For a myriad of reasons we dress in certain ways, get certain jobs, and participate in certain activities. All of this to “fit in” and demonstrate
Continue readingThings Are Good: Stop Trying to be Happy
Want to be happy? Stop trying! The key to happiness is accept reality and not to imagine some greater version of happiness. Projecting oneself into a better future and striving for something that cannot be just builds a disconnected between expectations and your everyday experience. This dissonance creates unneeded stress
Continue readingmark a rayner: The Ruins — a new flash fiction at the Caesura Letters
I have a new flash fiction up this week at the Caesura Letters called The Ruins. It’s a different kind of piece — a meditation on the nature of Stoicism (though to be fair, it has a dash of existentialism in it.) If you haven’t already checked out the Caesura
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Friday Night Flicks: Fallen
Reminds me of this passage from Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations: “Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.” Filed
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