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Andrew Smith's avatar

The really cool thing about stoicism is that it works. The sucky part is that it takes a long time to get good at it, but once you grasp the idea that you're on top of an elephant, things start to get a little more clear.

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Andrew Perlot's avatar

True, but most worthwhile things are the same. I find that many resilient people have a kind of automatic Stoic reframing going on all the time, though they may have no idea what Stoicism is. So it's really just a matter of adopting this reframe rather than mastering something esoteric and intellectual. Though, admittedly, there are several intellectual positions that need to be agreed to first.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I absolutely had a stoic reframer on my shoulder as a kid, but his voice was often overwhelmed by my internal chemistry, whose voices were often deafening. And yeah, it has been possible to feed the reframer, if that makes sense! He's way louder now, although the gooey emotional voices can still be pretty loud every now and then.

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Michael Woudenberg's avatar

Totally, agree. Elephant Riding is an art of Stoicism.

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Joshua Stevens's avatar

Yes, I agree that stoicism takes time. From my experience and knowledge, the ideas in Stoicism are a life-long challenge. Life always changes and neve stays the same. I learned this in therapy.

My therapist at the time mentioned that clients would ask him if there "was some little pill that they could take to solve all their problems." Much to their dismay, he informed them that such a pill doesn't exist and sometimes it takes a life-time.

A lot of philosophy, from classic philosophy up to Friedrich Nietzsche, deals with psychology.

There are a lot of very valuable concepts to be learned.

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Kyle Shepard's avatar

Another banger guys. Love when you two collaborate. Emotional intelligence is not a new concept. Stoics have been practicing and preaching it for millennia. We just now have updated books and data to back it and phenomenal writers like you two to demonstrate it!

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Michael Woudenberg's avatar

Thanks! The most ironic was I was turned into Stoicism during an emotional intelligence training where they used 'stoic' as a negative and I knew that wasn't quite right. Got me digging in and realizing that stoics were what any EI training should teach.

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Andrew Perlot's avatar

Ha!

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Kyle Shepard's avatar

Resonated with me so much as my first exposure to the word stoic was the same explanation. Absence of emotion. As you and Andrew beautifully explained and I learned over time as you did, Stoicism the philosophy was not that at all. Unfortunate application of a word in stoic when Stoic implies something completely different.

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Beowulf Obsidian's avatar

I had a very similar experience with Stoicism. It really is a counter to so many of the extreme emotions ruining relationships.

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Andrew Perlot's avatar

Agreed. And I find that when I take Stoic precepts and bring them into the realm of real-life communication, particularly with romantic partners, good things happen:

https://open.substack.com/pub/andrewperlot/p/my-only-romantic-superpower?r=1xulhu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

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Joshua Stevens's avatar

Stoicism can be helpful. I think some helpful ideas are: owning your emotions, knowing what you have power over, and learning acceptance in life.

I think these ideas are something to work on over a lifetime, as life doesn't exist in a state of inertia.

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Michael Woudenberg's avatar

I agree that it's a long journey. Thankfully we have a map.

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Dee Rambeau's avatar

Words to live by.

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Gudasan's avatar

Heil Trump / Musk.

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Michael Woudenberg's avatar

Well that's certainly one way to miss the point of the essay. 👊🏼🤣

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Kyle Shepard's avatar

😂

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