The Wise Fool

But it is impossible to move some of the men of to-day, so that I think that I know now what I did not know before, the meaning of the familiar saying, 'A fool is not to be persuaded nor broken of his folly.' May it never be my lot to have for friend a wise fool: nothing is more difficult to handle.

Discourses of Epictetus

Book 2, Chapter 15

Ahh, the wise fool. How often in our daily lives--personally and through various media--do we encounter that person who thinks they are the guardians of the truth. We can see they are intelligent, well spoken, well read even, but they press their belief in some false idea that has been tested and found false over and over again. 

In a video, Slavoj Žižek quotes a communist commissar insisting that communism failed in the Soviet Union because it was never really implemented, that it had been corrupted by Stalin. And with the same reasoning, a staunch capitalist is shown offering the same logic following yet another massive economic collapse. He insists the failure of capitalism was a result of it being corrupted by too much government interference; that pure capitalism, like pure communism, has never really been tried. Both people represent the wise fool--men of great intellect who continue to cling to false ideas. 

These are world changing ideas that millions still cling to, which brings up the greater point: what ideas do we, as individuals, have that are false, that are damaging to our ability to lead good, meaningful lives. Do we overvalue the opinion of others? Do we give meaning to things rather than to people? Do we try to make ourselves "better" by buying some consumer product rather than working on the only thing that can make us better: our minds. Are we valuing the wrong things perhaps making false connections: money leading to love, or travel to enlightenment, or thinness to happiness. I'm not providing any answers here, but rather offering up the idea that we should examine our fool's wisdom.

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?

John Maynard Keynes

Actions

That is why philosophers enjoin upon us 'not to be content with learning only, but to add practice as well and then training.'

Discourses of Epictetus

Just as an apple on a shelf means nothing to your body until it has been eaten, philosophy means nothing until it results in a change in our habits, in our ways of perceiving the world and the actions that result from that perception. I have a bookshelf of unread books that are merely stacks of paper until they are read and produce some change in my mind. That is not to say that knowledge for its own sake is not a good, but that philosophy should be like the food we eat, it should become a part of our lives and lead to a change in how we perceive the world and take action. The eaten apple becomes a part of our bone and blood so should the philosophy we take on as a guide change the way we perceive the world and alter the actions we take.

What you store away you have at hand and can show to others at will, but it does you no good except for the mere name of having it.

Discourses of Epictetus 

If I am to call myself a Stoic, I should keep it to myself and allow my actions to represent who I am rather than the spewing of words about this or that writing by some ancient. Firstly, I don't know all the words, and can only put forth here what I have spread before me in an open book with the words underlined. Do those underlined words mean anything if they are not reflected in my daily actions and thoughts. That's important. For as much as our way of interacting with the world should drive towards right action, our thoughts should be directed by our rational mind, our will. It is the way we filter the world to draw false conclusions that really get us into trouble. We draw conclusions that are not supported by the facts, by reality as it exists.

Poorly treated things tend to break.

Yesterday, for example, I put up some Christmas lights and ran into a few problems that resulted in an outpouring of expletives and threats of violence against the retail industry, lighting manufacturers, incompetent engineers, and the very concept of Christmas. But if I think logically, and look at the facts around my treatment of that string of lights, I am to blame. Did I not bundle them up without any thought for the delicate wires that connect the lights together? Did I not throw them into the corner of the garage with no consideration of their future use? Is it any wonder that their delicate wires would break and stop working? So with many things: careers, marriages, friendships, family, etc. We have to take care of those things we want to continue functioning. All of them are delicate things with connections that must be maintained and you can't just go to the hardware store to replace what no longer works. 

So we have to put our reading and thinking into action in activities both trivial and essential. When things go wrong, more often than not it is some action we did not take. Keep well.

Wasting Time

Yes, do just that, dear Lucilius: liberate yourself, and gather and save up time which until now was being taken from you by force or stealth or simply slipping away unnoticed. Convince yourself that the situation is as I describe it; some periods of time are snatched from us, some are stolen, and some simply seep away. Yet the most shameful loss is the loss due to carelessness. Indeed, if you consider things attentively, the greatest part of life slips away in failure, a great part in futility, and all of it in distraction. 

Selected Letters

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

What a tragedy it is to go through life and at the end, when there is little left, start to see how precious it is. It's like winning a lottery, and then when there is only $10,000 left starting to be thrifty. It's too late. We only have one precious life to live, but how much of our time is wasted in shopping, trivial entertainments, and other meaningless activities? Do we really have so much life that we can spend an entire day binge watching some mediocre television show? Since our lives are time, time should be that most precious thing we preserve and consume in the pursuit of meaningful activities? So then the bigger question becomes: What is a meaningful activity? One that makes you a better person, one that takes you closer to leading a good life of virtue. Watching 5 seasons of Breaking Bad in a week is not going to move anyone towards that goal. Spending three nights a week in a pub drinking with your "drinking buddies" is not going to help. 

How is it some have, with the same amount of time or even much less, produced so much? It is as if they lived a dozen lives compared to the little I have done. I suspect, through an act of pure will, they made a decision to use their time wisely, to dedicate it to activities that would amount to something meaningful. I don't mean making money or achieving great power, but rather being engaged in something that is good, that adds up to something. So there is the bigger question: What constitutes a meaningful life? That's a big one! 

We should look at our time as our most valuable resource to not be wasted. And each of us knows when we are wasting our time, when we are engaged in something that, in the end, adds nothing to our lives but a cloudy head with no real memories. Live well. 

Confession: Given the lack of entries on this blog over the past few weeks, as well as no meaningful updates to www.stoicfreedom.com, it's obvious I have been wasting my time. Yes, I did spend time on completing another painting, and starting a third one, but other than that the past few weeks have been a blur. Time to sort out what are meaningful activities and what are meaningless. Don't "kill time" use it to some good purpose. Since one way of measuring progress is to show results, and I have offered up the idea that painting is a meaningful activity, here is the second painting I have completed. Keep well.

The Road (24" x 30")

Focus on Your Strengths

If you try to act a part beyond your powers, you not only disgrace yourself in it, but you neglect the part which you could have filled with success.

The Manual of Epictetus

How often in life are we presented with choices that take us down different paths? On the one hand, there is something we know we can do, and on the other there is the challenging opportunity that will stretch us and push us but require that we become someone we are not. The self-help, success culture of today would suggest we go for that thing that challenges everything about us rather than pursue the thing that aligns with who we are. Is it wise to try to become something you are not? 

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes.

Walden

Henry David Thoreau

I can look at a man and, for whatever reason, desire those things he has or look with envy at his accomplishments or good fortune, but in the end I am also wishing I was someone other than who I am. We should work with the clay we have rather than wish we were made of different clay. Others have their own natures and good fortune that brings them their own burdens and freedoms, but in the end we are stuck with our own clay that can be molded, but not turned into something it is not. We all have to come to understand our nature and mold how we live to that nature so we can accomplish our true life's work. Keep well.

Fear

What you must practice and have at command is to know what you ought to approach with confidence, and what with caution; all that is beyond the control of the will with confidence and what is dependent on the will with caution.

Discourses of Epictetus 

The above quote, to me at least, is stating things in the opposite way I generally think. I tend to fear the unknown, fearing those things I can't control, but am confident about those things around me that are in my control. But, if I think honestly about it, it's clear we are our primary enemy. Looking back over my own life, any real damage that was done to me, whether physical, mental or financial, was the result of poor reasoning and a misapplied will. We are the villain we have to fear, not the villain in the street. Yes, there are horrible things coming to all of us, but most of those things are beyond our control so should not be feared. What we should fear are those things that are within our control. 

How do we come to avoid those things that are damaging to us? By using the one power that makes us human: our reasoning ability, our ability to stop, think and determine where we have control and where we do not. 

If I think back to problems that have occurred in my life, following the roots to the seed that grew the weed, I find that I planted the seed. At some point I made a choice based upon poor logic or, usually, no logic at all. For example, we spend hours thinking about the upcoming election, but ignore the things within our own houses that we should be working through. This isn't about being "happy," it's about not wasting our lives obsessing over things completely out of our control. For example, I used to read a lot about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust based upon being part German and living in Germany as a child. Historically, not to be trivial, it's an amazing, well documented piece of history. When I lived in Germany, I still saw the scars of war--bomb craters in the woods and ruins. But really, why read a dozen books about it when one would have done the trick. Why fill my mind with those grim stories and images of death and destruction. On a much smaller scale, I think we spend a lot of time with our own tragic stories going round and round in our heads reliving some childhood sadness, adult disappointment or worse. At some point, using our own reasoning power, we have to clear the shelf of those memories. Pull the weed.


This is what we have to fear: the demon within us that will push us to pursue actions that lead to an empty life built upon delusions. In the words of Seneca: A man is as miserable as he thinks he is. 

If we work to apply reason to our actions and thoughts, we can tame the beast. Keep well.

Time

As part of my effort to increase my knowledge of Stoic philosophy, I just completed reading On the Shortness of Life by Seneca. As with nearly all of my philosophical readings, it will require rereading.  

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. 

On the Shortness of Life

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

When we reach a certain age, we can look over a life extending back to that blurry time when facts mingle with fiction. We can try to linger over certain periods that stand out because something meaningful was happening: sports, college, first dates, vacations, first jobs, people that made an impression on us, books, sights, sounds, etc. Our memories are full of disconnected events that are recalled for a variety of reasons. The odd thing about time is that it flows forward at the exact same rate whether we are 5, 15, 30, or 80. Rich or poor. Famous or unknown. King or slave. Time is a constant regardless of how it seems to us to flow fast or slow. Whether we waste it on meaningless pursuits or fill it with significant endeavors is up to each of us. And we each know how to identify our wasted time.  

I spent half my life chasing women and getting drunk. The other half I wasted.

A Walk in the Woods 

We can't go back, and the amount of time left in the "jar" is unknown. When we are down to that last bit, clinging to the sides, you can bet it will not be the best of the time that was allotted, but we will work to scrape out every last bit. If we will only look at these present days and see them as precious as those final ones.  

Unfinished painting from 15 years ago...

What we can do today is guard our time to make sure we are using it wisely. Not that we treat each day as if it were our last, but that we treat each with the full awareness that it could be. Our days should be filled with a proper amount of meaningful activities, and simply getting things done, while avoiding the popular "killing time" as if there were such a surplus. I'm including this unfinished painting because of all the ways I have spent my time painting seemed the most fulfilling. I stopped painting and now I look back and wish I had continued to work at it. Lost time can't be found... 

In the end, our time is the most valuable of possessions and each of us is given only a certain number of hours, months, and years.  

Exposition on the curse of deferring life by the act of waiting for something to happen:

And waiting means hurrying on ahead, it means regarding time and the present moment not as a boon, but an obstruction; it means making their actual content null and void, by mentally over-leaping them. Waiting, we say, is long. We might just as well--or more accurately--say it is short, since it consumes whole spaces of time without our living them or making any use of them as such. 

The Magic Mountain

Thomas Mann

Don't wait for anything: vacations, promotions, elections, pensions, revolutions, etc. Live this day and consume and digest it completely. Keep well.

Postscript:
As a result of my entry about time and the quote from Thomas Mann, I picked up my old brushes and, instead of waiting for the right time to start painting, I started to paint. 

Six Blocks (24" x 30")

Judgments

5. What disturbs men’s minds is not events but their judgments on events. For instance, death is nothing dreadful, or else Socrates would have thought so. No, the only dreadful thing about it is men’s judgement that it is dreadful. And so when we are hindered or disturbed, or distressed, let us never lay the blame on others, but on ourselves, that is, on our own judgments. To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education; to accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun; to accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete. 

The Manual of Epictetus

All we have as human beings is our judgement and our will. Judgement to provide how or if we should respond to events and our will to apply our judgement. Many of life's problems are based upon poor reasoning that leads to poor judgement and the misapplication of our wills. How often, in the process of making a decision, do we take the time to clearly assess why we are pursuing a course of action or, all to often, a course of thought? We allow our minds to revel in irrational memories or travel down well worn routes of resentment. 

48. The ignorant man's position and character is this: he never looks to himself for benefit or harm, but to the world outside him. The philosopher's position and character is that he always look to himself for benefit and harm...

The Manual of Epictetus 

The above, along with fully understanding what is in our control versus out of our control, is a major concept. Entry 48 of The Manual ends with the statement: In one word, he keeps watch and guard on himself as his own enemy, lying in wait for him. 

City of Delusions: the more successful the less livable...

We have to treat ourselves as containing two minds, one we can control and one that if not contained will undermine us. And I don't just mean putting ourselves into situations, or making grand decisions that will lead to our ruin. The way we interpret the world with this irrational mind will lead us to live deluded lives blaming others for our misfortune when, in the end, we are responsible or, often the case, no one was responsible. Bad luck? Fate? The objective should be to ensure our thinking is based upon reason and the proper weighing of facts rather than emotion or delusion. It takes conscious effort to filter through things and draw well reasoned conclusions. We have to be on constant guard for the demon of irrationality that exists within each of us. The demon of irrationality doesn't only exist in large things, but spends most of its time guiding us into self-delusion over the smallest matters that keep us from leading good lives. Keep well.

Difficulties

Difficulties are what show men's character. Therefore when a difficult crisis meets you, remember that you are as the raw youth with whom God the trainer is wrestling.

The Discourses

- Epictetus

Each day we are confronted with opportunities to exercise our reason to separate those things over which we have control from those over which we have no control. And then we have the ability to guide our responses to events in either category as they occur.    

How much of our day is spent playing with past difficulties or even creating difficulties where none exist? The past contains lessons around how we might choose to respond to future events, but it does not contain events that can be altered. Past difficulties are nothing to linger over as they become like myths in that with time it becomes difficult to sort out fact from fiction. We are deceived by our memories of the past believing our minds to be like hard drives rather than a personal library of vague associations. Why are these books side-by-side? Because I bought them on the same day. Our energy should be dedicated to the opportunities of the present moment. And I choose that word, opportunities, with some thought. Every moment, not to create to much tension, is an opportunity to exercise our judgement and response. As it was said, don't show me your weights, show me your muscles. Our judgement and will are like weights that we have to keep exercising. 

If we are sitting at a meal with many guests and the dessert is making it's way around the table, it's an opportunity to wait, be patient and allow the others to take their share. When the dessert arrives, there is an opportunity to take one or pass it along. And then, regardless of the choice, not to make a show of anything. Don't announce you don't want dessert or draw attention to your choice simply act and pass it along. Events are like that dessert. We know they are coming around the table and we are going to have to respond when they arrive. We can decide how we will respond--whether we make a show or simply deal with it in a rational way.  

Consider your day to be like a trip to the gym--an opportunity to exercise your Stoic Freedom over difficulties and, equally important, non-difficulties. Keep well.

     

Cogs

A confession. I started this post with the intention of ridiculing the Career Opportunities Group--not very Stoic. The acronym produces the word "cog" as in a cog in the machine: an unimportant person performing some often trivial function in a large organization. I found that funny and went down the path of criticizing business culture and all the energy and intelligence expended to produce services and products that are rather useless--think Candy Crush and having consumer products delivered overnight. I was critical of business types and their efforts at self-improvement, self-inflation, and self-importance, but then had to look in the mirror and fully accept that I have never been more than a cog in the machine as, in the end, 99% of us are. That's how an economy works and most of us feel lucky to be one of those cogs. All that would be fine if there was also a broad understanding of that fact. These CEO's that make 1,000 times more than the average worker are often just replaceable cogs that establish their importance more by their compensation than by their actual accomplishments for the business. 

I don't know what's really in the minds of these business types reading their email as they walk down the sidewalk on a beautiful day. The sad part is if that's all there is, if we walk around spouting business speak thinking we really are performing some meaningful function when in fact we are only mixing up what already exists. Is Amazon really that much more than a Sears catalog? Is the internet, for most of us, much more than the Yellow Pages and the Encyclopedia Britannica rolled into one? Point being, most of us aren't doing anything of much importance, and, on top of that, we ignore our inner life and don't work towards having a clear view of things as they really are.

Tedium is not a sickness brought on by the boredom of having nothing do do but the worse sickness of feeling that nothing is worth doing. And thus, the more one has to do the worse the tedium of all.  

The Book of Disquiet

- Fernando Pessoa

This sounds pessimistic, but only if we deny the fact that 99% of us will live our lives, die, and be forgotten. Is that pessimistic or reality? The question is, once we face this basic human fact, what do we do next? I believe we work to live as best we can with no illusions, that we work to live a good life by using our minds to sift through what is worthy and what is unworthy of this, our one life. 

He does not know what is the true good of man, but fancies, as you do too, that it is to have fine clothes.

The Discourses

- Epictetus

See the man, not the clothes. Stoicism is not fatalistic or pessimistic but rather realistic. We have this one life, and we should live it richly even if it means being a cog... 

Shake out all those things that complicate life like imagining that you are important, that anyone is paying attention or that anyone, other than your close family, friends, and partner, even cares about what you are doing--even then it might just be your partner that cares. Are your friends interested in your trip to Hawaii or the promotion you just got? Not only are they not interested, they likely resent you for any success you may have. (Is Facebook, for many, anything more than a child's tool for bragging about what they did over the summer?) Show modesty in all things, show restraint, let things go, and show a willingness to accept what is: accept your coghood and then move towards having a good, meaningful life. Does this mean you don't better yourself, that you don't work hard, that you don't participate in the world fighting injustice? No, but all those things are done with a calmness, focus, and awareness that we are all, we humans, imperfect beings struggling to be good. Just because you are stuck in the machine at work, a tool of the tool (Thoreau), doesn't mean you have to remain stuck for the remaining time. Life is not short, it's that we waste so much of it (Seneca) on trivial undertakings.

In the end, we need to use our minds, our reason, and see the world clearly. That thing you want and are struggling to achieve will be attained (or not) and then, possibly, there will be another day. Keep well.

Reason

There is one thing that separates us from all other creatures on this planet: our reason. We are able to perceive the world and make rational judgments about it. When we allow irrational thoughts to guide our behavior we are giving up the one thing we have that is truly our own. Where does this reason come into play? In every moment of our lives we are making judgments about the world whether it is how we will interact with one another or how we perceive the world. 

The first step in applying our reason is to clearly define what is in our control and what is outside of our control. We can't change the age we live in, the culture that exists around us, the people that cross our paths every day, the time we were born, or our parents.  As it's said, choose your parents wisely. The list could go on and on, but sitting opposite that list is our mind which we control or can learn to take under our control. We do have to grant there are people who suffer from forms of mental illness that are not within their control, but then, on the other hand, there are mental illnesses that appear to be uncontrollable but when individuals are taught to control their thoughts, their behavior, their actions, they step away from their illness. What is required is an awakening to the fact that much of what individuals see as out of their control is in fact within their control. It is possible to control fear, anger, jealousy, our thoughts, the swirling of our minds can be contained.

Scuola di Atene The School of Athens

What do I mean by the above? When we allow our emotions to be guided by the behavior of others, we are giving up our reason. I will use this word, reason, to indicate that part of the mind within our control. Reason determines how we interact with the world. If we look at our emotions, such as anger, we can often see we are behaving irrationally and basing our responses to the world on the idea we have control over things that are out of our control.

The first step in Stoicism is to turn on our reasoning ability and start to see the world as it really is filtering out everything that is out of our control and focusing on those things we can control. There is also the need to monitor our responses to the world around us. Are they rational? Are they based on what is really happening or are we coloring things with our judgments, our pasts, our wishes, fears, desires, or other emotions? We need to see the world with clarity or we are not living. To not see the world as it is, is to live in fantasy. How many of us allow our brains to be like monkeys jumping from thought to thought never taking the time to regulate the one thing we can control: our minds? The first step in Stoicism, as in Buddhism, is to get control of our minds. No easy task. Keep well.

Emotions

We humans are emotional beings which can lead us to both the most positive AND most negative actions. We, despite what we might allow, are not slaves to our emotions, we can control them, we can, so to speak: get a grip. We should not let particular emotions control our behavior. Our emotions are not our masters. When an emotion arises, we should stop and examine it to determine its origin. 

Anger, for example, is often based upon our inflated expectations around how something should turn out. 

When driving to work, all the other drivers should be aware of our presence and our unbelievable driving skills. Someone passes you on the right because you are going 60 in the passing lane and we unleash a string of curses never mind that we have passed people using the slow lane a thousand times. Anger is often the result of not totally accepting the idea that things don't always go the way we want. When anger rises up, take five seconds and embrace the fact that our position is not based upon reality--things don't always go the way we want. 

Cain slaying Abel by Peter Paul Rubens

When someone succeeds, we diminish their success never addressing our own envy: What kind of a person buys a Rolex? We allow ill will to fester in our hearts without acknowledging that people do work harder than we do, that people are smarter than we are, but that we are still good people leading good lives. We should not allow envy to be the emotion that gets between us and having meaningful relationships with others. Remember the story of Cain and Abel--jealousy overcame Cain and he killed his brother. If he had just stopped and said, "Hey, maybe God isn't a vegetarian." 

We should not be ruled by our emotions whether they are love or hate. Think through your emotions and you will likely discover they are not what you think, but rather the result of poor logic.

You are in love and your love is the only person on Earth for you, the only person on this planet that understands you, that is a fit for you, so you overwhelm them and drive them away. Then you turn to anger and all logic runs away. Better to see that person as one of perhaps millions that you are compatible with and not the one-and-only. Yes, love them, but do not idolize them to the point of having, once again, inflated expectations. 

Take charge of your heart by using the mind nature provided. Keep well.

Questioning Our Judgement

Keeping our judgments from running wild is a major accomplishment. These judgments can alter our perception of the world if we do not hold them up for examination. I am not only referring to how we perceive others, but also how we perceive our own stories that we rarely call into question. We all have little stories in the back of our minds that we repeat over and over until they become a legend about ourselves and we stop questioning them. These stories can come in many types, but the two big ones are either you as the hero or as the victim. Sometimes we weren't as heroic as we thought we were and conversely we weren't the big victim either. We should each examine the stories we tell ourselves and the impact they have on the way we live our lives, the way we perceive who we are. 

And then there is the quick judgement we apply to others not taking a moment to see them as the equals they are. We confuse our judgments with reality. This is not to say we don't judge people and events, but rather that we apply some logic to the process and not simply take the easy route. We don't know the stories of others and we often don't know our own because we have distorted things so much. It takes a lot of effort to discover who you really are, but how many minutes in a given day do we dedicate to actually going through our thoughts and casting most of them aside. Create a new story for yourself and take a few minute to discover the story of another person. You will be surprised. Keep well.

Follow-through

In The Enchiridion, by Epictetus, entry 29, there is a piece of advice that applies greatly to me, perhaps more than any other piece of advice in the entire manual: 

In everything you do consider what comes first and what follows, and so approach it. Otherwise you will come to it with a good heart at first because you have not reflected on any of the consequences, and afterwards, when difficulties have appeared, you will desist to your shame.

In all endeavors it is not the first step that counts for the most, but the following steps that bring plans to fruition. How many are the projects planned, pondered, developed, and started but never seen through to the end? When beginning, have the end in sight, but stay focused on the path, on the individual steps required to achieve that goal. But first, pick worthy goals that challenge but do not require a new man for you must do the work with what you have. 

This blog, and the included website (www.stoicfreedom.com), were started in a flurry of activity that covered approximately one day. But now it's necessary to follow-through and do the work; sustain the energy over the 52 weeks I set for myself. Is this a worthwhile undertaking? Is this something I can apply my energy towards? I believe so. Keep well.

A Beginning

Today is August 17, 2016 and I have decided to go on a journey of self-discovery by writing about my experience applying the principles of Stoicism to my daily life. 

I have been reading Stoic texts (primarily Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius plus a few contemporary authors such as William Irvine) for around the past 15 years without ever developing a methodical way to apply them as guides to my life. I am not sure how that will look, but I have an idea that will allow me to apply some rigor to this philosophical experiment. 

I just realized that The Manual of Epictetus is divided into 53 entries which works out to just over one per week in a 52 week year. What if I studied each entry of the Manual within a given week and applied it to my life in a cumulative fashion? That is, in week 10 I will be applying entries 1 through 10 and in my final week I will be applying all of the entries. 

I won't be going at this alone. Along with the Stoic texts, I plan on using additional texts and, hopefully, guidance from others I meet along the way. Ideally, and this will be the difficult part, I will work to start, or join, a Stoic Café where I can get additional help. Here I go! 

Update: This idea was completely changed as I gave more thought to the setup of The Manual. I also read a noted classical scholar, A. A. Long, that said we should not focus on The Manual but rather seriously study The Discourses. With that in mind, I realized that a week per entry wouldn't work. Instead, I am going to read The Discourses to understand the concepts and apply them to my life. It will be more about exploring and applying these ideas and then relating them in a journalistic fashion. I will read and then observe myself and the world and, hopefully, offer some insights that aren't too trivial. Keep well.