ABOUT THIS EPISODE
I've been thinking about how I actually live out my philosophy lately, and here are 3 concepts that I've been trying to live out. I'm still working on them and I have a long way to go, but I hope these help you to learn how to live better.
Here are the quotes I mentioned in the episode.
Govern yourself First
“ For kings reign well when they live according to God’s will and serve Him in fear; and when they reign over themselves and do not become the servants of their own vices, but master the impetuosity of these by courageous constancy. For there is no inconsistency between constancy in virtue and royal courage in a king.” St. Anselm of Canterbury to Alexander King of the Scots.
What is the difference in form between refusal to act and inability to act?’ ‘if you say to someone “I am unable to do it,” when the task is one of striding over the north sea with mount T’ai under your arm, then this is a genuine case of inability to act. But if you say, “I am unable to do it,” when it is one of massaging an elder’s joints for him, then this is a case of refusal to act, not of inability. Hence your failure to become a true King is not the same in kind as “striding over the North Sea with Mount T’ai under your arm”, but the same “as massaging an elder’s joints for him”” Mencius, Book 1, Part A, 7. Pg 56
“ But the one who seems to rule over men, but who is enslaved to anger and the love of power and pleasures, first will appear quite ridiculous to his subjects, since he wears a crown of gems and gold but is not crowned with moderation, since his whole body shines with a purple robe, but he has a disarrayed soul. Second, he will not even know how to administer his command. For if a person is unable to rule himself, how can he guide others rightly by the laws? But if you wish also to see each one conducting himself in warfare, you will find the one fighting demons and prevailing and conquering and crowned by Christ.” St. John of Chrysostom - On the Comparison of a monk and a king.
Don’t Puff yourself up
People think that they can clear up profound matters if they consider them deeply, but they exercise perverse thoughts and come to no good because they do their reflecting with only self- interest at the center.” Hagakure: The way of the Samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Pg 3
“unrelated theories or ideas that confuse students more than … edify them. … [teachers] should not say everything that we are able to say, lest we say less profitably the things that we ought to say … not the teaching of others…but the showing off” Hugh of St Victor
Know where you are going
“It is clear, Lucilius, that no man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom; you know also that a happy life is reached when our wisdom is brought to completion, but that life is at least endurable even when our wisdom is only begun”
“Wipe out the imagination. Stop the pulling of the strings. Confine thyself to the present. Understand well what happens either to thee or to another. Divide and distribute every object into the causal [formal] and the material. Think of thy last hour. Let the wrong which is done by a man stay there where the wrong is done.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VII, 29.
“The reason we make mistakes is because we all consider the parts of life, but never as a whole. The archer must know what he is seeking to hit; then he must aim and control the weapon by his skill. Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.” Seneca, LXXXI. On the supreme Good, Letters from a Stoic
