Education

Introduction

The exercise of education is perhaps the beginning of all Stoic exercises. This is the process of learning so that the student may begin to understand and put to practice what is needed to live a life according to Nature.

In this essay, I'll outline a few ways the Stoic student educates himself. I'll also share how this exercise has helped me in the past and how I continue to practice on a day-to-day basis in my different duties as husband, father and employee.

Reading

Read, read, read. I cannot think of a more important way of education than reading. Reading opens a world of ideas from many people. It is how ideas are shared. While many people love books and proudly display them on their book shelves, they mean nothing unless the person reads them and spends time with them. Therefore, dedicate time during your day to read, either with your eyes or ears!

Since this essay and project is focused on Stoicism, I will specifically address ideas for reading Stoic texts and articles. The Stoic student must read the ancients: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and others. Early in my Stoic education, I was introduced to the philosophy by modern Stoics such as Donald Robertson and Ryan Holiday. But soon after, I pivoted to the ancients and I would advise you to do the same. Some people find Marcus easier than Seneca and others find it the other way around. But the only way to get on with Stoic reading is to start! My personal recommendation is to pick up a suitable translation of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and read through it a few times. After reading it a couple of times, I would highly recommend reading Pierre Hadot's The Inner Citadel. Hadot's book will unlock Meditations and provide you insight into how the philosophy is meant to work for you. After spending time with Marcus and Hadot, dive into Epictetus. If one really wants to understand Marcus, he must love Epictetus. Epictetus is not so easy, but if you keep reading his sayings, you will begin to feel the urgency and importance to live the philosophy. Then perhaps when you understand Epictetus, you can tackle Musonius Rufus and then take the plunge into Seneca.

The more you read the ancients, the more their dialogue becomes your inner dialogue. When I was the in the middle of re-evaluating the religion I was raised in (Mormonism), the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius often soothed my soul. During the years of 2015 and 2016, at times it felt that Marcus was the only one who could heal the wounds no one could see. I distinctly remember a Sunday afternoon in January, when I left church services in the afternoon, went out to my truck, pulled out my copy of Meditations and began reading out loud. When days become tough or circumstances troublesome, his words echoed in my mind and my distress is lessened.

One such circumstance was when I was doing yard work in February 2017, during a particularly warm spell of weather. As I was picking up clippings from the bushes, I felt a shocking prick on my hand - it was a bite from a venomous snake - a copperhead. I was hospitalized after the bite and during the many hours of laying there and waiting, one passage from Meditations rang through my head, over and over again.

A bitter cucumber? Throw it away. Brambles in the path? Bo around them. That is all you need, without going on to ask, "so why are these things in the world anyway?" That question would be laughable to a student of nature, just as any carpenter or cobbler would laugh at you if you objected to the sight of shavings or off-cuts from their work on the shop floor (Meditations 8.50).

It would do me no good to re-live that moment and be angry at that snake. Yes, I could have worn additional protection for my hands, but what was done was done and if I wanted to move on from this, I needed to focus on the present and keep a positive attitude. That quote above helped me to focus on the true nature of the situation and keep myself focused on the medical attention I needed.

When you take the time to read the ancients and you make it a part of your life, you will find their wise words come at needed and important times. Read the ancients; repeatedly.

Writing

Writing is a way to ensure that what you've read has sunk deep into your soul. If you are able to summarize in writing, what it is you have read and learned, then you will be more likely to remember the important lessons in time of need. Writing your thoughts onto paper or in a digital document sometimes brings to life some aspect of your thinking that you may not have considered before. Writing is a way to bring unconsciousness to the level of consciousness which can then be fully evaluated. From summarizing what you've read, to writing extemporaneously in a personal journal, writing reveals either the order or the chaos of the inner citadel.

Whenever you read a book, be sure to highlight important aspects and jot down ideas and thoughts that come to you. You should then return to these aspects and thoughts and either summarize them or elaborate on them in the form of writing. I have found that my learning of a book is deeper, and my recall slightly better when I hld myself accountable for being able to summarize what I've learned. I've dedicated an entire blog to writing and much of it focuses on my commentaries of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca. The process looks something like this:

read the passage or chapter two to three times (more if needed)
highlight parts that are important; or parts which stick out
think about what's been read; how it could be applied today; how is it useful
summarize it
correlate it to parts of my life or other things I've read
produce brief outline, write, revise, edit and publish

One of the benefits of this system is that I am able to search and refer back to my writings and thoughts and re-read it and share it with others. In my duties as a father and husband, I've often found something I've read and written about previously would be helpful to my wife and kids. Sharing a link to a blog post is an easy way to teach and to share a part of me with those I love.

Journaling is another important Stoic practice. There are many forms of journaling. Some write out their meditations, some use it as a method of planning and reviewing their day. Below is an example of journaling while planning and reviewing the day.

Plan in the morning; look at your day ahead and note where you might need to exercise virtue
If time allows, use some negative visualization to anticipate how you should appropriately act (i.e. traffic, grumpy managers, a headache, hunger, pains, etc); this could lead to identifying something for which you are grateful
At the end of the day, review your day, two or three times and ask yourself some key questions:

What did I do badly (ruled by irrational fears or unhealthy desires, etc)?
What did I do well (progressed towards wisdom, courage, self-discipline, justice)?
What would I have done differently if I had a do-over (how would have I reacted differently to the things I did badly, did I miss opportunities to practice virtue)?

Somewhat related to journaling is another exercise called distancing. In this exercise, you write your thoughts on a white board and stand on the other side of the room and look at them from a physical distance. Then ask yourself:

Will this / these thoughts matter in an hour? A day? A week? A month? A year? Or years from now?
Evaluate the 'pros' and 'cons' of an opinion … evaluate them with detachment
What would Marcus Aurelius (or a wise person or friend or sage) think of my situation?

Perhaps the most useful form of journaling for me has been what I call "long-form thought analysis." I don't use this method very often. Between the years 2018-2021, I've used it only six times. This long-form thought analysis is triggered when I've become quite unbalanced in life. Sometimes an incident in basketball or work happens and I find myself pissed off, angry or upset. It's important to recognize these feelings and begin working through them. My admission of the problem is usually the first thing about which I will write. Then I begin to search for causes and effects in the real world as well as my inner thinking. I ask "why" several times to get to the real root cause of my discontent. Sometimes only a bit of writing and self-coaching will do the trick. Other times, it may take several days of writing and thinking before I get to rock bottom of the root cause.

In October of 2020, I found myself in a deep funk. My motivation seemed to disappear and I felt nothing. As I wrote in my journal, I noticed that I had gone through a similar phase exactly one year previous. I theorized that there must be something about October which causes me to go into a funk. I began to write again and take a very deep dive into my thoughts, feelings, emotions and causes. The writing took the form of interrogation and answers. Deeper and deeper I went and my honesty became quite real. After about three days of writing on and off, I began to feel better. I read what I wrote, to my wife - she saw I was going through some funk. What I wrote and read to her prompted some amazing, deep conversations with her. Our love for each other grew even deeper - I was sharing some of my most darkest, insecurities I held deep inside me. And by writing about them, and sharing them and talking about them, I healed my soul and I rebounded from that funk quite quickly.

If you are not in the habit of writing, start today. Start small - such as writing in your journal. Look for opportunities to practice writing. As you practice more, you will begin to see how disorganized your thoughts are and then will begin the work of observing, organizing and sharing them.

And to close out the first two sections on reading and writing, consider this passage from Seneca:

I have not stopped my reading in the slightest degree. And reading, I hold, is indispensable – primarily, to keep me from being satisfied with myself alone, and besides, after I have learned what others have found out by their studies, to enable me to pass judgment on their discoveries and reflect upon discoveries that remain to be made. Reading nourishes the mind and refreshes it when it is wearied with study; nevertheless, this refreshment is not obtained without study. We ought not to confine ourselves either to writing or to reading; the one, continuous writing, will cast a gloom over our strength, and exhaust it; the other will make our strength flabby and watery. It is better to have recourse to them alternately, and to blend one with the other, so that the fruits of one's reading may be reduced to concrete form by the pen (Moral Letters 84).

Duties and Values Identification

Returning to Discourses 2.10, Epictetus shows us that we need to learn what our duties, which depend on the roles we play in life. For some, they know precisely what it is they want to be. For others, the path is less clear. For those where the path may seem less clear, completing a values identification assessment may help you identify what is important to you. The assessment may reveal careers and types of activities and work you prefer and therefore may help you identify other duties and roles you may consider.

To begin, follow the path Epictetus provides. He says, "Consider who you are" and then lists out various roles and associated duties. The first three roles are applicable to everyone: we are humans (we have choice), we are not beasts (we have reason), and we are citizens of the world (we have a duty to care for others in our circles). Philosophy educates us on our duties with regard to these three roles. As I've stated above, read from the ancients and write about them, and you will learn your duties for these roles.

Beyond these roles, there are others which may or may not apply to us. Indeed we are all children and most of us have a duty to honor our parents. However, because some people may be orphans or some may have abusive parents, these duties may not apply. Similarly, we are not all teachers or Marines, and our various roles may change depending on our age and circumstances. Therefore, it is a good idea to identify these roles as you go through life and ask yourself what are the duties and responsibilities of that role.

I have done this a few times in my life, and while some core roles and duties have remained, many have changed over the years. Each time I conduct a "review of my roles" I have found it helps me see my path forward and to focus on the tasks at hand. As part of this analysis, I have prioritized the roles from most important to least important. As is the case throughout life, sometimes we are forced to choose between our roles and duties. Sometimes we have to sacrifice one duty in order to fulfil another. Sometimes we don't know what to do and when we know what is most important, we can look to that prioritized list to guide us.

Obedient Child or Integrous Individual

I'll return to the story of my leaving the religion of my birth (Mormonism) as an example of competing duties and how the prioritization of those duties lead me to the decision I had to make. Through most of my life, as the youngest child in my family, I had been trained to honor my parents and to be an obedient child. As a side note: while the Mormons agree with the first and second great Christian commandments, they are often fond of reminding members that "obedience is the first law of heaven" (source). Being the obedient child was one of the most important roles I had from the time I was a child until adulthood. Almost everything I considered doing or choosing was viewed through the lens of "will my parents approve of this?" Many major decisions in my life were guided by this perspective and for the most part, it has served me well, because my parents are amazing people with solid morals.

But my perspective changed a bit the more I became independent. As time passed, the examples of others began to show me I needed to stand on my own two feet and live and think for myself, without needing to seek approval from my parents in order to be obedient and feel validated. The need to be obedient to my parents and the drive to be independent came to a head at the age of 38. In the midst of re-evaluating my religion and philosophy, I found that the truly autonomous part of me did not agree with the teachings and unique tenets of Mormonism. I became quite conflicted internally: remain obedient to parents and the religion of my upbringing and ignore the truths I had learned or choose to be true to myself and openly admit I no longer agreed to those unique, Mormon tenets. It was a struggle for me for about four years, I had to hide the true part of me from certain people. When that became untenable, I decided that it was more important to be my true self - to live a life of integrity - than to remain an obedient child by not leaving the faith. I told my story to my parents; and while they were sad to hear it, they still loved and respected me.

Thankfully, there have not been many roles and duties which conflicted in my life to the extent of the example above. Indeed, there are times when my work duties and family duties have conflicted, those were short-lived and infrequent. And even in those situations, I always kept an eye on what my most important role was.

Values Assessment

During those years when I re-evaluated my religion, I found I needed some extra help to define what my true values were. So much of my life had been informed by Sunday School teachings, that when I no longer trusted what my religious teachers taught me, I had to seek guidance about my core values. My therapist suggested I take a values assessment test, which might help me realize where I should spend my time and effort.

The values assessment shed a bit more light on my personality and gave me good advice for how I could find fulfillment. Much of my core values remained the same: commitment to family and traditional values. It also showed me that sociability was much more important to me that I realized. I began to consider the advice the test offered and began participating in more social events at work and on my own.

Conclusion

In sum, education plays a vital part of the Stoic's life, from learning the philosophy to understanding your true, unique self. This education cannot happen without reading. Reading the ancients, in my opinion, is one of the best ways to learn the philosophy. Beyond reading, I strongly recommend writing in the form of summarizing, journaling and distancing. If it helps you to comprehend reading better, then I also recommend writing commentary on what you read. Lastly, be sure to spend time learning who you are; what your roles and duties are. Spend time to understand what your core values are, so that you are in a better position to help yourself and others.