are: a note on stocisim

encouragement to let each to their own set a precedent for what kind of person they want to become. In the words of Marcus Aurelius, “Stop arguing about what a good man should be…be one.” In the following paragraphs, I will outline the steps one can take to ensure they build a strong mental frame and stoic attitude.

The first step is not so much an action as an intellectual acceptance of one’s own intellectual limitations. In a sense, we must necessarily acknowledge that we are not an impenetrable tank that steamrolls through our emotional baggage as we traverse life. Instead, we must exercise essential humility and openly acknowledge that we must take everything thrown at us as it comes. Think of ourselves not as automatons with no emotions, but as people with unique attributes that must articulately interact with everything that life throws our way. Of course, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Instead, it was built upon every day. Human life grows and develops in the same manner. The only difference is there’s a certain randomness behind humans that machines lack. Humans are unique and complex thinkers. Once we recognize that, we can use those capacities to better ourselves. My advice is to accept these intellectual limitations not as shortcomings but as barriers to be overcome through patience and directed effort.

My advice is to become a voracious reader as many historical figures were described. Famous individuals who were fervent readers include Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln. It should be stated that we are living in the time of the greatest literacy for the common people. Never in recorded history can so many people open and accumulate knowledge a writer has compiled. Open access to information is now more widespread to almost anyone than at any time previously. It should be wise of us to utilize our reading capacities even if we find it personally difficult. Even if we think we can’t read well or read enough, it’s important to remember that there is nothing wrong with slow readers. Slow learning carries its own beauties with delayed gratification. Additionally, the average person reads only one to two books per year. That information gives us a stepping stone to gauge how much we can go above average to excel and become reading champions. We live in a time with enough information to last several lifetimes. It is then best for us to, as Marcus Aurelius also said, “confine yourself to the present.” We can confine ourselves to this moment and take it as our initiative to acquire more information until we are specialized enough to inhale it further. Now it is possible to have too much information. With that, we run the risk of information overload. To counteract this, I would like to say more information can be better than less information as with less information we run the risk of confirmation bias. The fragile state of our judgment can be violated and we can be made into fools who simply agree with what is on the page because it agrees with our views. That’s why the capacity to inhale information can give us at least some chance to ingest new material to stretch and widen our intellectual prowess. Basically, what I am trying to say is that we all have the ability to develop our information intake skills and then sharpen them through inductive skepticism to create and successfully fulfill the role of scholar. Once that has occurred we can navigate life with a richer and fuller experience not for ourselves alone as we have learned to step back, develop a stoic attitude, and ingest information all the while bettering ourselves in the process.

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