A Guide to the Good Life by William B. Irvine

modified 20/04/2024 22:48

This is a practical book, focusing on stoic philosophy, through a modern lens, but using the writings of the late stoics (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, and Musonius Rufus). The books is written in 4 parts, and starts out with the author’s story, how he came about writing the book, then talks about the history of stoicism accross the ages. The author argues that a life philosophy is essential, in order to not waste our lifes. The two parts compose the essence of the book. Part 2 is about the techniques practiced by stoics, and part 3 is just a bunch of advice on how best to live our lives, according to the 4 stoics. In each of the chapters, the author includes the writings of all the different stoics, so we can see how their points of view converge into the same ideas. The author is himself a practicing stoic, and in the end, he talks about his own experiences with it, but also includes tips for adapting stoicism to modern lifes and for making the adoption of stoicism easier (most important tip here, I think, is practicing each of the techniques one at a time). Most importantly, he argues that the antic motive behind practicing stoicism(that Zeus created us, but gave us stoicism in order to make the most of our lives) doesn’t fit our modern life, and instead proposes that we instead think of natural selection as responsible for our hard-coded impulses and behaviors (i.e. craving fame, or sex), and that we don’t really need them anymore, so they’re doing more harm than good really, and here stoicism is a tool to fight those hard-wirings of natural selection. Learning to love your life as it is right now

Stoic Techniques

Negative visualization

• Spend some time each day (when waiting in line at the supermarket, waiting for transport) to think about the things that could’ve gone wrong today but didn’t. Imagine not being able to walk, or losing your hearing or sight. When you part with someone, think about the fact that this could be the last time you see each other. Do this with objects too: think about not having your laptop, not having a house, not having a job. Contemplate about how your life would look then. This makes it so you stop wanting more and more, and instead you recongnize how valuable the things you have already are. This makes it so you don’t take them for granted.
• This also prepares you for the case of actually losing them. If it happens that you lose your ability to walk, or you lose someone dear to you, you’ll at least be sure that you did the best you could while having them – that you valued them to the best of your abilities, instead of thinking you’d done things differently.
• Another interesting thing: it’s not wrong to have stuff. Like, it’s not wrong to have and like your clothes, or have a nice keyboard. What’s bad is depending on those things. So the right attitude about material possesions should be that of “I know I’m most likely going to lose this thing, so although I like it, I could easily live without it; I don’t really need it”. Like you need to understand that you don’t need this or that to be happy and to be full. You could be just as happy without it.

The dicothomy of control

• Things can be split into those you have complete control over, those you have some control over, and those you have no control over. The line between complete and some is pretty blurry, though, which the book kind of fails to acknowledge. For instance, it mentions that money is something we have no control over, but then mentions winning a tennis match as something we have some control over, motivating it by saying that “if we try our best, we greatly increase our chances to win the match, but we don’t have complete control over that, since there’s always luck involved, our opponent might be better than us etc.). But I think it’s the same with money: we have some but not complete control over them: if we try our best, that is we put in the effort to get a good job, we do our best at that job etc. we’ll greatly increase our chances at making money.
• Maybe the point in the money example is that because you’re never really getting enough, you kind of don’t have control over it. If, for example, you do your best at your job and you make a ton of money, you’ll still want more, so in that sense it’s like you have no control over money. So the solution here is to just stop wanting more money then? It’s really what negative visualisation is there for.
  • I think here the author shouldn’t have included the third category. What I think the stoics meant by “some things are not up to us” are the things about which we have some, but not complete control. We have some control about everything a priori, including things like money and fame, and the things about which we have absolutely no control over – such as the sun setting, are not worth mentioning at all, since they’re not even important to ourselves and there’s no implication of us in that.
• The most important lesson here is that we should really set goals in such a way that we a) can easily accomplish them, and we can’t fail at accomplishing them, or if we do, we’re the ones directly responsible for it and b) are totally in control of them. For example, my goal is to become a great programmer. But this goal has 2 flaws: a) I can put in tons of effort and still not make it (if greateness means becoming famous, rich, or doing great researchs; there’s tons of people like that but we’re not being told about them because that wouldn’t appeal to the “you’ll be a rockstar someday” kind of bs we’re being told), so there’s still room for me to fail; and b) if greateness means how famous I become or how important is my research, then I really just depend on other people to determine my greateness. So the solution to this kind of problem is to trick myself by transforming the goal into something that I can’t fail at, and something that I have control over (author calls it internalizing your goal). In this example, it would become “do my best at programming”. Now, the only way I can fail is if I don’t do my best, but then I’m the only one to blame for it, as I have direct control over it. And since I can know when I’m doing my best and when I’m not, I don’t need no one else to judge my worth.
• TLDR: set simple goals and have simple desires that are easy to accomplish and you won’t feel bad about not accomplishing them; switch from end-goal to process (switch from “I need to win this match” to “I need to do my best in this match”); kinda feel like I need to practice this more

Fatalism

• basically, don’t get distracted by fate, swim with it, not against it; love whatever happens (amor fati, like Nietzche), because it’s only there to make you stronger;
• Schopenhauer was talking about things you’re given from nature – intellect, beauty, strenght; when reading his “Of the wisdom of life”, i felt pretty dissapointed at learning that. But now, i realize that that’s really not something you have control over, and the only thing i can do is use what i’ve been given as well as i can. I know i’m not doing this, i know i’m not using my intellect to its fullest extent. Thus, instead of being mad at the fact that i haven’t been given more, i should just work on using up all of the intellect i’ve been given.
• interesting idea, and i think i’ve heard this quote from an american president or leader? not sure: perform the duty you’re assigned to the best of your abilities (if you’re supposed to sweep the streets, be the best street sweeper there is)
• becuase of fate, our actions have little influence over our future (like a horse race that’s been fixed); that’s not what we want. We should instead be fatalist in respect to the past, understanding that what’s done is done and nothing we can do can change it, and especially not dwell on it
• the last part is really the essence of what stoicism is trying to teach: we should love our life as it is right in this moment; not who we could be after 10 years, not who we could be after accomplishing our goals; we should love us for who we are right now; it’s like the Nietzche idea of eternal reccurence; imagine that after dying we’ll have to life the same life over and over and over. Or that we’ll have to live the same day over and over and over. Would i still love my life? everything stoicism does is teach us how to reach a state where, asked this question, we can firmly answer Yes. Right now I’m at the pinnacle of my life.

Pleasure and self-denial

• pleasure is not good; don’t do anything for pleasure
• constantly do uncomfortable things (cold showers, underdressing for cold weather, fasting), and reject comfortable things (choosing not to eat w/ the boys); this helps us:
  1. be prepared for/when life throws us out
  2. grow our confidence, knowing that we don’t need this or that to feel good
  3. appreciate what we already have
• similar idea found here and in Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins – of always fighting your other self – your self that is weak, that does only what is comfortable, your self that takes the way of least resistance, by doing hard and painful stuff on purpose. even if it’s going to cause you pain at the moment, it’s good for your overall tranquiltiy, as by doing uncomfortable things, you’re preparing for when life throws you out, and you make sure that you’ll keep your tranquility when that happens.

Stoic Advice

Criticism

• basically, don’t ignore all criticism, but do the exact reverse: stop and think about it:
  • if the insult is true, don’t get mad
  • if the insult is misinformed, get it straight with the person that insulted you
  • if the person who insulted you is better than you, don’t let the criticism insult you, and actually try and see what they mean
  • if the person who insulted you is worse than you, don’t get mad, because you’re most likely doing the right thing
  • a lower person that insults us is like a dog that barks;
  • why try to impress people that are below me anyway?
• the insult is just a word; you’re being insulted because you choose to be insulted; if something external hurts you, it’s only because you’ve put too much value in it.
• respond to insults with humor if you can, or don’t respond to it at all