Anything that is not well organized is bad to get involved with.
Most of us live very disorganized life. Our thoughts and actions doesn’t match at all. We think everyday “what do we want” and believe that it’s something different. We convince ourselves to do something, but in reality, we end up doing something completely opposite.
It's worth it to organize the things before we act on them.
Marcus Aurelius in his journal, which later became a book Meditations (More Lessons From Meditations) talked about stoic practices that most of us find difficult to grasp. Here are two stoic practices:
Living in accord with the virtue
This is the important exercise practiced by Marcus Aurelius. Stoic philosophy is based on the practice of "living in agreement with nature." This means seeing things for what they are, doing what we can and enduring and bearing what we must.
He said:
No carelessness in action. No confusion in your words. No impression in your thoughts. No retreating in your soul or trying to escape it.— Marcus Aurelius
He further said in Book Eight to stick to what is in front you - the idea, action, utterance … The idea is to live life with purpose, do things with purpose - not rashly or at random. For every action, he said- 'Ask: How does it affect me? Could I change my mind about it?"
Give up the judgement
We are to quick to judge anything and anyone. Most of the suffering comes from the judgement not from the suffering itself. Marcus said:
If thou are pained by any external thing, it is not the thing that disturbs thee, but thine own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now. — Marcus Aurelius
Epictetus once said, "Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them." It is our judgement that disturbs us the must. So, the end of suffering lies in giving up the judgment and accepting the things as it is.
Original Post: Capitalism mindset
The trust in the future is what enables bank and the entire economy to flourish. Before 18th century, credit system didn’t exist and hence, they economy was undervalued. The people back then didn’t have the trust in the future. They thought that the future can’t be better than the present.
But as the scientific and industrial revolution took place, the mindset changed. People started to trust in future, which gave rise to credit. Credit was then used to pay the workers and contractors, which increases the productivity. Increase in productivity increased profits. The increase in the profit built more trust in the future.
This trust in the future created credit, credit brought real economic growth; growth strengthened the trust in future and opened the way of even more credit. And the cycle continued.
In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, the most economic manifesto of all the time. In the eighth chapter of its volume, Smith made the following novel argument: When a landlord, a weaver, or a shoemaker has greater profits than he needs to maintain his own family, he uses the surplus to employ more assistance to further increase the profit. The more profit he has the more assistance he can employ, which follows increase in profit , wealth and prosperity.
Smith said that greed is good, and by becoming rich one can benefit everyone not just oneself. He said, “If I’m poor you will be poor too since I cannot buy any products or good from you. If I’m rich, you will be enriched too since you can now sell me something.”
This capitalism mindset is what is driving the economy of the world. The credit on the other hand is increasing the pace of economy
I am quite intrigued by the "String Theory", which is considered as one of the most famous theory in modern physics.
As so called the "Theory of Everything", String Theory addresses that the every object is made of the fundamental particle which further exist in a string. It proposes that the fundamental constituents of the universe are one-dimensional “strings” rather than point-like particles
We all know that every object is made of the atom and inside the atom is nucleus. This nucleus is made up of proton and neutron. Each proton and neutron is made up of quarks. We all know of that.
String theory challenges that idea and claims that inside the quarks, there exists a string like filament of vibrating energy. The vibration of this string is just like the string of guitar playing different notes. Just like each notes produce different music in guitar, the vibration of string inside the quarks represents electron, proton, positron, graviton, etc.
The huge confusion is that mathematical calculation for string theory will only work if there is more that 3-dimension. That means there are more than three dimensions which are intermingled with each other and are difficult to notice. This is quite interesting and vast.
"The secret of all victories lies in organizing the non-obvious. "
The four great works of four Roman stoics focus on four key central ideas which describe Stoicism. The four virtues are:
Courage: Courage is the opposing force of cowardice. Courage is not the elimination or fear, desire or anxiety, it is acting in the right way despite our fear, desire and anxieties. It is the ability to retain strength of character and our morals in the face of the fear and desire not to do so. Epictetus writes, “And they say that there is this difference between the mind of a foolish man and that of a wise man, that the foolish man thinks that such ‘visions’ are in fact as dreadful and terrifying as they appear at the original impact of them on his mind, and by his assent he approves of such ideas as if they were rightly to be feared, and ‘confirms’ them …. But the wise man, after being affected for a short time and slightly in his color and expression, ‘does not assent,’ but retains the steadfastness and strength of the opinion which he has always had about visions of this kind, namely that they are in no wise to be feared but excite terror by a false appearance and vain alarms”
Justice: Justice in Stoicism is broader than justice in our language and legal systems today. For the Stoics, justice is our duty to our fellow man, and to our society. It’s the morality behind how we act, specifically in relation to our community and the people within it. It serves to focus your actions towards the betterment of the whole, rather than just the self. Marcus Aurelius wrote, “What is not good for the beehive, cannot be good for the bees.”
Temperance: Temperance/moderation relates to self restraint, self discipline and self control. It is our ability to choose long term well-being over short term satisfaction.
It is the opposite of gluttony, greed, instant gratification, addictive behavior, laziness, and procrastination. Seneca wrote, “Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.”
Wisdom: It’s an ability to define what is good, what is not good, and what is indifferent. The Stoics believed that virtue is good and vice is not. Virtue leads to happiness and vice pulls us further from it. Wisdom is simply our ability to know what is what, and in knowing we can guide our actions more deliberately.
PS: From https://sameerkhadka.com/the-four-virtues-stoicism-im-753/
Or is it the other way around?
I think attitude comes first and it drives our way to act.
"Action follow attitude". It sounds like it has flaws. It is our attitude that determines the action we take not the other way around, at least in my opinion.
Marcus Aurelius, in his book “Meditations” said that the nature’s job is to shift things elsewhere, transform them, pick them up and move them here and there. It’s job is to make constant change.
There is nothing new happening here. Everything is related and familiar. The good of one people is bad for another and vice versa and so is everything else.
Carl Jung once said, "What you resist persists." This is so true because while resisting something we are using our attention on resisting it. And energy flows where the attention goes.
The anti-war movement create more war and the anti-drug movement has created more drugs. The reason behind bigger things getting bigger and smaller things getting smaller is also the same. Bigger things gets attention of the people and energy flows in its favor.
So instead of focusing on worlds problem we should focus of abundance, trust, love, education and peace. Just like Mother Teresa once said:
"I'll never attend an anti war rally. If you have a peace rally, invite me."
..that 1920s and 30s music are rejuvenating.