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Because most of what we say and do is not essential. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. “‘If you seek tranquillity, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s essential-what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way.
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As Seneca put it, “Works not words.” Temperance Wisdom is harnessing what the philosophy teaches then wielding it in the real world. That space is where we either take the lessons from our reading and apply it or we throw it out the window and act impulsively and irrationally. Recognizing that space is the first step. In that space is our power to choose our response.” In that space is wisdom’s opportunity. Viktor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In Diogenes Laërtius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, he wrote of the Stoics, “wisdom they define as the knowledge of things good and evil and of what is neither good nor evil…knowledge of what we ought to choose, what we ought to beware of, and what is indifferent.”įollowing having this knowledge, wisdom ultimately informs action. It’s the meaning of philosophy: a love of wisdom. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own” - Epictetus “The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Ok, but what is virtue? The Stoics believed there were four virtues: “The man who has virtue,” Cicero said, “is in need of nothing whatever for the purpose of living well.” If we act virtuously, they believed, everything else important could follow: Happiness, success, meaning, reputation, honor, love. They said that everything we face in life was an opportunity to respond with virtue. In Latin, it means “the highest good.” And what is the highest good? What is it that we are supposed to be aiming for in this life? To the Stoics, the answer is virtue. Summum Bonum was the expression from Cicero, Rome’s greatest orator.