The Stoic Magazine Library

If asked to consider the essence of Stoicism, I can only respond that I am still learning.  I’m not an expert (far from it) but after ten years of intentionally seeking out Stoic communities, reading the work of Stoic thinkers, engaging in Stoic practice, and participating in Stoic events, I consider myself much more a Stoic than not a Stoic.  As I consider the time I’ve already spent living, and the time I may have left, I know that I’m much happier and better off with Stoic principles guiding my way.  

Stoicism doesn’t need to be complicated. Tempted as we might be to quibble about the details of Stoic theory – and trust me, I do this plenty often myself – we can easily lose sight of the only thing that really matters about Stoicism: trying to be a good person.

Given the ever-expanding library of content discussing the tenets of Stoicism, one would think that the philosophy could be diluted down to a single essence. There’s an argument to be made that that has already been done with the maxim “live according to Nature”, and I would indeed argue that it has. However, with abstraction comes room for misinterpretation. Put another way, those four words do sum up the entire philosophy, but only if you understand the vast complexities of what it really means.

Despite that, perhaps there is a better way to sum up Stoicism in modern language. Perhaps we can answer the question: what separates a Stoic from a non-Stoic?

An ancient Stoic ideal

“Living in harmony,” “in agreement,” or “in accordance” is an ideal of the Stoa from the beginning of that school onward. In his Epitome of Stoic Ethics, Arius Didymus indicates Zeno was first to frame the goal of life along those lines, as to homologoumenos zen  in Greek.  He adds that Zeno means “to live according to a single line of reason [kath’hena logon] and in harmony [sumphonon]”, explaining that “those who live in conflict [makhomenos] are unhappy”.  
 

The essence of reformed Stoicism is that it has no essence. Is it too big a provocation to state this?

When the fearless leader of this publication, Chuck Chakrapani, suggested this month’s theme, I was un-Stoically giddy. I’ve spent the last two years of my life steeped in Stoic theory and practice, and if I’ve learned anything about contemporary Stoicism, through the communities that have formed around it, it this: many of its adherents are lost in the sauce; to the great detriment of their characters. Chuck providing me the opportunity to talk about this, is like offering Mister Toad a brand new mania – and if you don’t get that reference, that’s okay.

Practicing Stoicism

If you want to practice Stoicism, you have a number of resources available to you, most of them free. THE STOIC Gym journal alone publishes almost 100 articles every year. Our website TheStoicGym.com has about 700 articles, blog posts, poems, book reviews, videos, etc. We also have many more sources available to us such as ModernStoicism.com, and blogs by the likes of Donald Robertson and Massimo Pigliucci. Now The Stoic Gym is annoucing a new monthly publication – Prokopton. 
 

For if any man should conceive certain things as being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to anything which should not be in harmony with what is really good. - Marcus Aurelius,  Meditations, 5.12

Harmony is a word often used when discussing music, but its application doesn't just exist there. One could make the argument that achieving a state of harmony is what Stoicism aims to do! However, we can understand what the Stoics mean by harmony by exploring what it means in music.

Stoic quotes for every day of the month

Greg Lopez was visiting Israel when the war broke out between Israel and Hamas. How does a Stoic respond to a situation like this? What were his thoughts? Here’s Greg in his own words. - Editor