Marcus Aurelius and the Lost Art of Stoicism
The world is in dire need of righteous leadership and that is because there is a lack of righteous men
The world is in dire need of righteous leadership and that is because there is a lack of righteous men. Why is there a lack of righteous man? Because we've lost the Way.
We are lost on The Journey therefore you don't know where you're headed or what your of coordinates are. You are Lost in Space lost in Time lost in this karmic cycle.
At this point in the End Times Supreme Court Justices cannot even define what a Women is, so how would she even describe a Man?
In order to get your bearings straight and to know which is the right side up in which is the world of The Upside Down in symbolism form and also as a literal End Times representation of reality.
What we needed was some examples from the past to tell us how Great Generals rose. Hence Marcus Aurelius and the Lost Art of Stoicism.
This YouTube video is rather long and those are usually the type of videos that Andre Hodge does, but if you let it play in the background, if you have that type of time then it's worth listening to, but if you're lacking in time skip to the 59 minute mark where the discussion on stoicism begins. The name of the speaker is even lost in time as we are lost in space and time.
The irony is complete today with this post because of our earlier post from this week and lost. We were talking about the symbolism in the Leopard bite that results in smallpox pandemic simulation exercise with the German Health Minister that was symbolizing The Leopard with four wings as in the upcoming conquests of Alexander.
And now we have another philosopher this time from Pax Romana and the last emperor and again we have the repetition of empires falling and the reign of emperors ending. It is symbolic of what is about to happen to America, unless America can find Stoic Generals rather quickly.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors (a term coined some 13 centuries later by Niccolò Machiavelli), and the last emperor of the Pax Romana.
Listen from the 59 minute mark and we have selected some of the best pieces from this unknown speaker talks on stoicism.
The third and most important development in Hellenistic philosophy is called stoicism. And stoicism is probably the greatest and most interesting achievement of the Hellenic the Hellenistic philosophers.
And while it never achieved the poetic and intellectual grandeur of the Socratic synthesis of the patonic overarching system, which make statements about the entire human condition, stoicism is in fact, a noble philosophy, an excellent philosophy for silver men, for the spirited men in the Republic, who are going to be our guardians.
Sounds like the Mandalorian, but even he broke the rules to be with Grogu. He chose a different way to follow The Way.
It's an excellent philosophy for military men. It's an excellent philosophy for people that are going to be practical politicians if they intend to be virtuous, if they intend to pursue the public good.
And stoicism is characterized by a rejection of pleasure as the standard of human happiness and human felicity. Stoicism takes the position that the wise man, a good man, the philosopher, is a man who lives in accordance with nature, he fears only abdicating his moral responsibility.
He is not afraid of pain, he is not afraid of death, he is not afraid of poverty, he is not afraid of any of the vicissitudes of the human condition, he fears only that he should let himself down. And then he should be less than a complete human being.
According to the Stoics, and there are a number of stoics two or three or four or five that actually developed the doctrine, but all the doctrines are quite similar. The only matter of concern to a wise and philosophic individual is the things completely under your control.
What is the point of worrying about things out of your control? Sounds good, but a deeper question would be how do we define what is and is not under our control?
You can't control the movements of the Sun and the planets. You can't control whether a leaky ship sinks or makes it deport. You can't control the weather. You can't control other people. You can't control the society around you.
There's only one thing and one thing only that you are in control of and that is you, your will, your intentions yourself. In other words, the wise man, the truly philosophical man is a man who is entirely in control of his own soul, who takes utter and complete moral responsibility for his actions, and is indifferent to everything else, not because he doesn't care about other people, not because he doesn't care about the felicity of the entire human species, but because it's not under his control.
There's no use wondering or worrying about what tomorrow will bring since tomorrow isn't under your control, do what's right today and that tomorrow will take care of itself. The stoic philosopher is the man who has liberated himself from fear. He's not afraid of death. He's not afraid of pain. He's not afraid of other people's dismissal as a fool. The only thing he cares about is that he should meet his moral obligations.
The Generals are missing and without wise stoic grounded leadership America will never regain to its moral compass.
Marcus has not only political power, but wisdom. And in that respect, he's the only example in the Western tradition of any ruler, who even remotely approximates Plato's philosopher king.
Those of you who are familiar with the works of Immanuel Kant can recognize the single minded and ruthless acquisition of virtue as being the Kantian conception of moral action or good moral behavior and the stoic conception as well. Both Kant and Marcus Aurelius have achieved the greatness that comes from being aware that virtue is sufficient in itself.
Ruthless acquisition of virtue would have no meaning those actions were not moral there's no point in engaging in immorality in the ruthless acquisition of virtue so Kant is somebody not to be taken lightly and that philosophy and stoicism are both ideas worth exploring, but as some point curiosity learning has to end and actions have to be put into practice.
And even more ancient saying is “know thyself” and “take what's good and leave the rest”. As in take from this video what you need to know your virtuous self and be your virtuous self as what is the valuable information part and leave the rest to your Creator.
