1This is a film about Stoicism and why you need more of it in your life
2because, as people seldom tell you, but we will, quietly...
3Stoicism was a philosophy that flourished for 480 years in Ancient Greece and Rome,
4and was popular with everyone from slaves to the aristocracy
5because, unlike so much philosophy, it was helpful,
6helpful when we panic, want to give up, despair and rage at existence.
7We still honour this philosophy whenever we think of someone as brave
8and - without perhaps quite knowing why - call them 'stoic'.
9There are two great philosophers of Stoicism.
10The first is the Roman writer and tutor to Nero, Seneca.
11He lived between AD 4 and AD 65.
12That's right, 'tutor to Nero'.
13The infamous dictator who slept with his own mother, raped young boys
14and, just because he felt like it, asked his old tutor - Seneca - to commit suicide in front of his own family.
15And our other guide to Stoicism is the kind and magnanimous Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121 to 180),
16who was forced to spend most of his reign on the edges of the Empire,
17fighting off invincible Germanic hordes,
18but found time to write one of the greatest works of philosophy - "The Meditations" - in his tent at night.
19There are two problems stoicism can help us with in particular.
20The first is anxiety.
21When you're feeling anxious about something, most people are maddening.
22They believe it's their duty to 'cheer you up'.
23However intelligent they might otherwise be,
24they say things like: "It'll be okay", "Don't worry" even "Cheer up!".
25The stoics were appalled.
26They hated any kind of consolation that aims to give the listener hope.
27Hope is the opium of the emotions and must be stamped out conclusively for a person to stand any chance of inner peace.
28Because hope only lifts you up higher for the eventual fall.
29The Stoics advised us to take a different path.
30To be calm, one has to tell oneself something very dark:
31"It will be terrible!"
32"I might have to go to prison."
33"The lump really could be malign."
34"I probably will be fired and humiliated."
35"My friends almost certainly will succeed."
36But, a huge consoling Stoic BUT,
37one must keep in mind that one will, nevertheless, be OK.
38OK because in the end, as Marcus Aurelius said: 'We are each of us stronger than we think'.
39Prison won't be fun, nor will losing one's job or being made a laughing stock... but one will get through it.
40Stoicism emboldens us against the worst fate can throw at us.
41And if you really really can't take it, suicide is always an option.
42The Stoics mentioned this repeatedly.
43Here is Seneca: 'Can you no longer see a road to freedom?
44It's right in front of you.
45You need only turn over your wrists'.
46To build up an impression of one's own resilience,
47the Stoics suggested one regularly rehearse worst-case scenarios.
48For example, twice a year, one should take off one's smart clothes, get into some dirty rags,
49sleep on a rug in the kitchen floor and eat only stale bread and rainwater from an animal's bowl
50and thereby, you'll make an amazing discovery,
51as Marcus Aurelius put it:
52"Almost nothing material is needed for a happy life for he who has understood existence."
53Another subject of interest to the Stoics was anger.
54Romans were a bad tempered lot.
55The Stoics wanted to calm them down but they did so by an unusual route: by intellectual argument.
56They proposed that getting angry isn't something you do by nature, because you have a Latin temper
57or are somehow inherently hot blooded.
58It's the result of being stupid, of having the wrong ideas about life.
59Anger stems when misplaced hope smashes into unforeseen reality.
60We don't shout every time something bad happens to us,
61only when it's bad and unexpected.
62For example, you'd never shout just because it started raining,
63even though rain can be horrible, because you've learned to expect rain.
64The same should apply to everything.
65Don't only expect rain, expect betrayal, infamy, sadism, theft, humiliation, lust, greed, spite...
66One will stop being so angry when one learns the true facts of the misery of life.
67The wise person should aim to reach a state where simply nothing could suddenly disturb their peace of mind.
68Every tragedy should already be priced in.
69We're gonna leave you with the most beautiful remark that Seneca made
70just as Nero's guards were grabbing him and shoving him to a bathroom
71where he was meant to take a sharp knife and kill himself.
72His wife Paulina and two children were panicking, weeping, clinging to his cloaks.
73But Seneca turned to them, pulled a weary smile at them, and simply said:
74"What need is there to weep over parts of life?"
75"The whole of it calls for tears."
76We have much to learn from the Stoics.