I rarely talk philosophy with my cat, Roscoe, but I suspect that he’s a Stoic.
And maybe I am, too.
For reasons I don’t fully understand, the YouTube algorithm started recommending video clips about Stoicism last week. That’s something I previously had no interest in learning about, but when an algorithm starts offering mysterious hints, I take it to be ‘divine intervention’. God apparently wants me to learn about Stoicism.
So I’ve been binge-watching videos about Stoicism for the past week. The algorithm is my teacher, so to speak.
“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” According to Chinese sage Lao Tzu.
What Lao Tzu actually wrote was: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready, the teacher will disappear.”
It could feel slightly depressing — having your teacher disappear — unless you are a Stoic, in which case, it doesn’t matter.
As far as I know, Lao Tzu never wrote anything, specifically, about an algorithm being a ‘teacher’. Also, he wasn’t a Stoic. But he could have been, if he’d been born in Greece in 300 BC instead of China in 500 BC.
According to what I am learning, the Stoics got their name from hanging around the Stoa Poikile — the “painted porch” — a colonnade in Athens where Zeno of Citium and his followers gathered to discuss ideas. Discussing ideas was a big business in ancient Greece, and Zeno and his followers seem to have generated enough interesting ideas to have them driving the algorithm on YouTube 2,400 years later.
The Stoic who seems to be most popular on YouTube is Marcus Aurelius, who spent some time as Emperor of the Roman Empire, from 161-180 AD. He wrote a little book called Meditations which is available on Amazon for $8.94. (In paperback.)
That makes him one of the few Roman Emperors with a book available on Amazon.
Former U.S. President Donald J. Trump has co-written at least seven books with co-authors Barry Bostwick, Tony Schwartz, Jeremy Lowell, and others… although my personal favorite is Think Big and Kick Ass, written with Bill Zanker… which I fully expect will still be available on Amazon 2,000 years from now.
But that’s just my opinion.
“When the student is truly ready, the teacher will disappear.”
Apparently, being an Emperor of the Roman Empire was something like being President of the United States, except that the Emperor didn’t have to worry about stolen elections, because there weren’t any elections.
Also, he probably didn’t get indicted.
Emperor Marcus Aurelius seems to have written his book of meditations for his own personal entertainment, since he never tried to get it published during his lifetime. But since he was a Stoic, this didn’t matter. He wasn’t interested in getting rich, according to his book.
Although, being Emperor, he was probably fabulously rich.
In some sense, I’m a lot like Marcus Aurelius, because I’m also not interested in getting rich. But for different reasons.
Also, he and I both have given a lot of thought to people’s opinions.
Marcus Aurelius wrote:
Beyond opinion, there is nothing. For what was said by Monimus the Cynic is manifest; and manifest, too, is the usefulness of this statement if a man profits from it, insofar as it is true.
I have no idea who Monimus the Cynic was, but if he was good enough for Marcus Aurelius, he’s good enough for me.
You could interpret this meditation as an assertion that ‘opinions’ are really the only thing we humans have, and so, we ought to bear that in mind when someone makes a statement. Like, for example, “Beyond opinion, there is nothing.”
In other words, don’t believe what you are told in a YouTube video.
But I’m approaching it from a slightly different perspective. If opinions are all we have, then that makes an opinion the very best thing. Since it’s the only thing.
But that’s just my opinion.
Here’s another little piece of Stoic philosophy from the Emperor:
Within ten days, if you return to the observance of moral principles and to the cult of reason, you will appear as a God to them who now esteem you a wild beast or an ape.
Ten days? That would take me right up to Labor Day, September 4. As good a day as any, I’d say, to appear as a God.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.