This is a compilation of the notes I took while enjoying an audio version of William B. Irvine's book, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.

Introduction

Instead of exploring classic philosophy, the book provides a practical lifestyle guide based on philosophical concepts. Namely, the book tries to answer the question "What advice would ancient Stoics from 2k years ago give to modern people?"

This guide is meant to provide a so-called Philosophy of Life. A fundamental practical guide to everyday decisions based on a set of ethical beliefs. A common education in ancient Greece, but absent in the modern era.

To the author's initial surprise, and contrary to common belief, Stoicism is not about suppressing all human emotions, just the negative ones—allowing you to enjoy the positive things in life, as long as you don't cling to them.

Stoicism overlaps with Zen Buddhism:

• The search for tranquility
• The practice of letting go
• Living in the present
• Forsaking desires, ego and–as much as possible–possessions
• Harvesting inner joy above all external pleasures

Compared to Buddhists, Stoics don't formally meditate, but casually reflect between moments. It's also apparent that Stoics pay more attention to reason and logic than Buddhists.

Brief history of Stoicism

Socrates (469–399 BC, Athens) transformed previous nature-centric philosophy into the modern human-centric philosophy. Philosophy became mainstream after his death, when many of his disciples went on to build philosophy schools of their own (branches from Socrates' ideas).

Socrates was appreciated both for 1. his theories and 2. his lifestyle devoted to those (unproven and nonconformist) theories. After his death, Plato took further his theoretical legacy and Antisthenes picked up his lifestyle. Unfortunately, while the theoretical part evolved greatly into the modern era, the lifestyle part was slowly forgotten. This book tries to resurrect the latter.

Created by Zeno of Citium (334–262 BC), Stoicism evolved from Cynicism. Cynics were the "ancient homeless" (no home, no possessions, just a cloak to cover their body). Cynics reject all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame. Stoics don't reject conventional pleasures of life, they just refuse clinging to them.

Argument for Stoicism over Cynicism: Rejecting pleasures acknowledges them as desires and creates more tension trying to suppress those desires.

Both Cynics and Stoics believed the purpose of life is to live in virtue, in agreement with nature. Since humans received the ability to reason, our (natural) function is to be reasonable.

To better understand our nature, Greek Stoics incorporated three components into Stoicism: physics, logic and ethics. Roman Stoics only focused on ethics and favored tranquility over virtue. They thought each one leads to the other, but the Romans focused more on tranquility because it made the Stoicism ROI more obvious for potential disciples :).

Notable Stoics that were very involved in conventional lives (what pure Cynics couldn't have done):

• Seneca (4 BC–65 AD) – Roman Stoic philosopher, playwright and political advisor to emperor Nero. Also, wealthy, one of the first investors!
• Marcus Aurelius (121–180 AD) – Roman emperor. Considered both one of the "Five Good Emperors" and one of the most important Stoic philosophers.

Desire, loss and the trichotomy of control

Due to hedonic adaptation, humans have a hard time sustaining joy over their accomplishments, because they continually develop new desires. Thus the logical path to happiness is learning to desire what you already have.

Stoic practice for learning to desire what you already have: Negative visualization. Every once in awhile, contemplate the loss of something you find yourself enjoying. Including the death of family members and friends. This sounds grim, but the key lies in contemplating instead of worrying. The former involves no emotions. You'll simulate the post-catastrophe perspective on life. You can use this practice all throughout your life, whereas real catastrophes are both rare and dangerous, and survivors usually resume to a numb life after a period of normality.

Another psychological tool to alleviate anger: projective visualization. Imagine what happened to you on other people. You'll gain a more detached, outside perspective.

Epictetus' (55–135 AD, Greece > Rome) dichotomy of control: Our desires are either internal (under our control) or external (outside our control). Desiring something outside our control is illogical because:

• If if fails, we are disappointed
• If it succeeds, we experienced anxiety (and lost tranquility) in the process of rooting for something we are not in charge of

The author proposes an extended model: The trichotomy of control. Here, goals can fall into one of three categories:

1. Completely under our control (e.g. not holding grudges)
2. Completely outside our control (e.g. weather)
3. In between the first two (e.g. winning at tennis)

The recommendation for goals that fall into the in-between category is to split them into smaller ones that are either completely under or completely outside our control. This way we can ignore external factors and we focus exclusively on the internal ones. This process is called internalizing goals. In the tennis example, it would mean focusing on "playing your best", instead of "winning". The upside is that playing your best might also be the best strategy to win.

Voluntary discomfort, the dark side of pleasure and Stoic meditation

In another attempt to appreciate the good things in one's life, Stoics recommend voluntary discomfort. Temporarily depriving yourself of things that bring comfort in your life. Things that you can easily become dependent on without even noticing (e.g. personal car). Besides reminding you of the nice things in your life, voluntary discomfort is a simulation for the inevitable future, when unforeseen circumstances will rob you of the comfort once considered a default.

Pleasure also comes with a warning sign. While pleasure isn't inherently wrong, it's often accompanied by guilt, or other forms of regret—the dark side of pleasure. Hence, if you manage your desires for pleasure using cost analysis, you might realize that forgoing pleasure yields more pleasure if you factor in the price of shame and the satisfaction of will-power.

Embodying Stoicism takes a lot of effort and time, which means on the road to Stoicism you'll often face contradicting forces: the Stoic principles you aspire to and your actual behavior. While this is normal, it's helpful not to mistake Stoic ideals for your identity in order to avoid discontent. Instead, you're encouraged to develop a Stoic observer.

Your Stoic observer will comment on your Stoic behavior and track progress. This inner communication is the product of Stoic meditation. Opposed to Buddhist meditation, where you let go of your thoughts, Stoics analyze thoughts and past behavior in order to learn from them.

Stoic behavior is not meant to be obvious. Bragging about your Stoic principles is the trait of a novice; true Stoics don't stand out.

Distress, major offenders

Insults are very efficient in breaking one's state of calm. Once again, the Stoics appeal to logic in solving this:

• If the insult comes from a person you admire, you're better off knowing what they think
• If the insult comes from a person you feel you fundamentally disagree with, their opposition is a confirmation of your values

Although unavoidable, grief can be endured better by reversing negative visualization into past negative visualization: Imagine what you would've missed if the subject of your loss hadn't ever been part of your life, and then be glad for the period you shared together.

Often you'll be in a situation when others will share their grief with you. While it's helpful to be genuine, there's no real use for anybody if you truly suffer as well. There's no evil in faking grief empathy as long as you are there for your friends in suffering.

Seneca labeled anger as "brief insanity". Thinking of anger as "anti-joy" makes it obvious that it is never the state one should consciously partake in.

Stoics do not reject the concept of fate. On the contrary, believing in some sort of fate makes accepting whatever happened (past) or is happening (present) easier. They don't, however, believe in a fatalistic future. You do have influence over your future, which makes it unwritten, whereas the past and the present are immutable.

Stoicism & death

Exile—a hot topic during ancient times—was a major "use-case" for practicing Stoicism, so it might seem like a lot of the Stoic teachings are obsolete. The author, however, argues that exile is comparable to being sent to a nursing home at old age, something almost every modern individual will experience near the end of their life.

Controversially, it’s not uncommon throughout history for Stoics to die by suicide. While Stoics believed suicide is an acceptable way to go when you're old and suffering, it was frowned upon if it meant abandoning your family or social duties, which violates the overarching virtuousness Stoicism stands for.

Stoics were also known for holding on to their principles even when it threatened their life. This doesn't mean they treasured life less. Rather, Stoics believed something worth dying for makes a life worth living.

Most people defer contemplating death at young age, making Stoicism more appealing to old people. However, there are reasons for contemplating death at any age:

• If you're aware of death, you're more likely to live the life you want than if you think you're going to live forever
• At the end of life, it's more common to regret the past than to be afraid of death itself

Author's notes

Mirroring aspirin, potent from its discovery, yet consecutively misinterpreted throughout history (from Ancient Egyptians to the 20th century), Stoicism could work as a cure for negative emotions even if ancient Stoic philosophers might have had outdated or questionable worldviews.

Modern science taught us that fear and anxiety mechanisms have an evolutionary purpose, slowly developed via natural selection. This might make Stoicism appear unnatural in repurposing cognitive survival tools into pursuing joy and tranquility. However, the author argues that we're already extending our evolutionary purpose by using our ears for indulging in music, or our eyes for enjoying movies.

Irvine recommends a cure for the "evolutionary autopilot", by cultivating a Philosophy of Life that best matches your personality and circumstances—be it Stoicism, a different school of philosophy or a unique set of values that work for you.

Quick tips on getting started with Stoicism:

1. Be a stealth Stoic
2. Master Stoic techniques one by one

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Coincidentally, I was vacationing in Larnaca—the hometown of Zeno, creator of Stoicism—when composing this summary. Also by accident, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon his statue while walking along the seashore.

Thanks to Derek Sivers for recommending this book and to Bianca Dragomir for editing my notes!

Ovidiu Cherecheș, Dec 2015