The Strong Stoic Podcast

Many people will give the advice to “be positive”. What this means, in a sense, is to be optimistic, to focus on the good things, and to imagine your future success. Certainly, there’s a place for this in life. However, is there a place for negative visualization? Should we incorporate some regular focusing on the bad things? On our potential future failures? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a presupposition to all self-help, self-improvement, and philosophy as a way of life topics: that growth is good. Self-help and self-improvement, after all, is improvement OF the self, though not necessarily just FOR the self. Even the philosophy of Stoicism presupposes that growth is a good thing. Their eudaemonic state is often described as “flourishing”, which is often imagined as a blooming flower. And that is growth. However, why is growth important? And how do we keep growing? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I have a very special and exciting announcement. Hopefully, most of you by now know my good friend and fellow philosopher, Joshua W. Bertolotti. We’ve done several collaborations together over the last year and a half or so, but we also talk regularly about philosophical ideas, current pop culture, and so on. Josh and I have decided to record these conversations and release them as a separate paid podcast on Substack. The first 15-20 minutes of each conversation will be released for free. Starting the first week in January, we will be releasing regular episodes of The Seeker and the Stoic Podcast for all premium Seeker and the Stoic Subscribers. All Patreon supporters of myself right now will get this as an added benefit, but I can’t guarantee that once 2023 starts, so if you do want to get the benefits of my Patrons plus the Seeker and the Stoic, now’s the time to sign up. Josh and I thought a lot about this and whether we wanted to put it behind a paywall or have it free, like In Search of Wisdom and the Strong Stoic. There are a few reasons why we decided on this model. Firstly, these conversations are usually personal, so we wanted to maintain the familiarity of our previous personal conversations and felt it’s best if we kept this in the more exclusive end. Second, both of us already put out a very significant amount of free content. We put in hours of work for no monetary gain, and that’s fine. We love to do that. However, we do have bills to pay and we need to prioritize something in our lives. Thirdly, we want this only available to our most dedicated and committed listeners. We both have many downloads a month, but there’s a much smaller amount of people who are actively engaged in the material. We love both casual listeners and committed ones, but feel like the committed ones deserve a little extra. The minimum monthly payment on Substack is $5 a month, but you can get it right down to $30 if you sign up for the year. I’ll also add that both Josh and myself would never want to see someone not have access to wisdom because of financial constraints, so if you email either one of us, we’ll work with you to get you the wisdom you need to improve your life. Now, here is a 15-minute section of the Seeker and the Stoic, Episode 1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Redemption is a word that is most often used in religious circles, such as Christianity. It’s used to explain the action of being saved by God from sin. However, redemption is part of any philosophical journey. It doesn’t need to be in relation to a supernatural God. It could entirely be between you and your own conscience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The cosmos has a way of making us succumb to “fate”. This word gets tangly sometimes – does this mean we have no free will? Of course, we do! However, that doesn’t mean that we have complete control over everything. We cannot choose which way life pushes us, but we can choose how we fall. Meaning: we can choose how we react to such a situation. Sometimes, these “pushes” take the form of accidents, injuries, and screw-ups. So how should we best deal with such things? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Will Johncock studies how an individual’s thoughts and actions, as well as an individual thing’s attributes, are the effects of social and physical environments. He works within the fields of continental philosophy, ancient and modern Stoic philosophy, social theory, and sociology. He is also an author, and his newest book Beyond the Individual: Stoic Philosophy on Community and Connection is coming out early next year. In this episode, Will and I talk about the line between individual identity and group identity, being yourself and whether or not it’s a good thing, the Stoic view from above, and much more. Without further ado, please welcome Will Johncock. You can find Will here: https://willjohncock.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Buddhism, it’s said that “life is suffering”. Though some Stoics may argue that this is not the Stoic view on life, it does seem to be unequivocally true that the philosophy of Stoicism exists because of that very fact – that life is suffering. Stoicism, like all philosophies, only exists because we must contend with that fact. Suffering, then, they seem like the most real thing, and that position could certainly be well-argued. But then the question becomes: if a philosophy is able to successfully transcend the suffering that is life, then wouldn’t that make the tenets of that philosophy even more real than suffering itself? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vulnerability is a bit of a buzzword these days. It’s often said that you need to “be vulnerable” in relationships to become closer to the person. Hence, it is seen as a virtue. But what does it really mean to be vulnerable? Does it tie in with any of the cardinal virtues? In other words: is it Stoic to be vulnerable? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Alexander is a psychotherapist, the co-host of the Between Two Ravens podcast, the creator of the Prosoche Project, and a founding member (like myself) of the Walled Garden. In this episode, David and I discuss becoming more conscious, analyzing dreams, Norse mythology, Stoic mindfulness, and much, much more. I found our conversation to be very natural and I learned a lot from his psychological insight. Without further ado, please welcome David Alexander. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may consider your body to be yours, but the Stoics had a different perspective on this. It is “yours”, in one sense, as it constitutes a part of you. At the same time, making the mind strong is what Stoicism is all about. In fact, you could look at many of the Stoic doctrines as a kind of rebellion against the body. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices