This one is a bit longer. but hopefully more useful!
Mel. Ryan. Elon. Peter (also Dave).
Household names all? No. Highly relevant content? Yes. But what am I talking about?
Ryan Holiday (The Obstacle is the Way) had Mel Robbins (The Let Them Theory) on his podcast. She said towards the beginning "I feel like I wrote a book about Stoicism without truly being a master of Stoicism."
She's right. Now...I am yet to read her book so I will accept her self-criticism as accurate (not a master of Stoicism - then hurry up lady!). Based upon what I have seen and heard, "Let Them" embraces the dichotomy of control -- let others do what they do. It doesn't have to affect you. Then let yourself make your own decisions absent of being affected emotionally from what is happening around you. So yes, and Ryan acknowledges as such, Stoicism 101.
But they both acknowledge multiple times in the chat that the biggest obstacle is other people acting in ways you wish they wouldn't AND our proclivity to react instinctively, try to change them, then get angry when they don't change.
It all comes down to 1 and 2.
(1) you and (2) things that aren't you.
(1) frustration and (2) anger.
(1) accountability and (2) tolerance.
Somebody put that into a table. Just be sure to use bold headers with gray background, size 10 Arial font, and freeze the top header row. Otherwise I will straight up lose my shit.
OK, so now we turn the attention from philosophy to AI. If I can highlight a path forward for society (since everyone is asking me), it is continuing to level up tools that humans can use to make our lives easier and happier while having an awareness of our own mental power over ourselves and our mindsets that can make us happier.
So, tools. Elon Musk.
Sorry, it was too easy.
But yes, Musk was on arguably my favorite podcast ("Chris, who is having an argument with you about your favorite podcast?") Moonshots with Peter Diamandis. In general, focuses a lot on the promise of a future abundance driven by AI and robotics.
A lot of folks in the AI sphere admit that humans are in for a "bumpy" ride. For the next 2-7 years. Why? Because scarcity will be going down. And thus value from legacy processes and skills will be going down.
The head of Microsoft said that software is dead. In a meeting I had with a client yesterday, we were saying that individual companies can build their own bespoke and "just enough" software tools for much, much cheaper than what they are paying now. Close to nothing. So the value is gone. Then the jobs become gone. Then the people that were maintaining thousands of software solutions and attending conferences to sell said solutions will be gone.
Gone to where?
No answer for now. Musk said "I am open to ideas on this."
But that is where curiosity and creativity are must-haves as we move forward. To circle back to philosophy, one of my favorite quotes that stays with me from Holiday is in the intro of The Obstacle is the Way: "Not 'why isn't this so bad?' - instead 'how can this be good?'"
Challenges will be placed at our feet or coming knocking on our door in the coming months and years. Challenges that really make it clear that what we went to college for is officially no longer a thing. So the question then truly becomes "how".
How can I create a life of happiness for myself and my loved ones?
How can I remain resilient when every thread I follow leads to a dead-end?
How can I keep from getting angry at the world for changing?
That's all that is happening. The world is changing. Perhaps faster than any of us want it to and perhaps faster than it ever has before. But that does not give us the right to (1) get frustrated with ourselves or (2) get angry at the world. We would be better off getting curious and creative. Might as well do things that will make us better off.
How many unkind people have you been kind to?
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
If you wish to be stripped of your vices, you must get right away from the examples others set of them.
— Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
A person isn’t brave, generally. We are brave, specifically. For a few seconds.
— Ryan Holiday, Courage is Calling
Rads Take
Gonna keep this section a bit shorter.
What Marcus is saying here, it is super easy to be kind to people that are kind to you. But Stoicism isn't here to help with the easy things. It is here to help with the hard things. Be bigger. The best revenge is to not be that way. Make choices that you will be proud of in an hour, in a year. Have the presence and awareness that the current challenge is fleeting but your character is not.
For Seneca, he is saying put yourself in an environment where it is easy to build yourself up and think positively. Surround yourself with negative people and you will move to their character.
Looking at the first 2 quotes, both Seneca and Marcus acknowledge (and frequently do so in their writings) the impact of other people and the expectation that other people will be doing bad things. In the Mel-Ryan podcast I mentioned above, Mel lost her shit when Ryan quoted Solzhenitsyn (I looked up how to spell it - ain't no way...) at minute 58 and said "let evil come into the world. Let untruth come into the world....but not through me."
There is no stopping it. And if we took steps to stop it, then we would paradoxically and ironically (well, at least one of those) be contributing to it. So let it be in the world. Have the tolerance for it but have the accountability to not be a conduit for it.
And finally, do I have courage? Am I in positions where I need to have courage? I would say this is where I probably would say no. But there are many ways to have courage. Ryan says we are not called to be brave or courageous constantly. But small segments of our life do call for courage.
But perhaps courage is building your life in a way and conducting yourself in a manner that doesn't require large acts of courage. The small jabs keep you from needing to engage a massive haymaker. Marcus said "Stay on the path rather than being kept on it."
The constancy of your courage on a daily basis enables you to stay on the path toward happiness. And that quote just asks "who do you want to be accountable for you?" The obvious answer leads to an obvious path.
Like I said, a bit shorter.