Stoic Advice and Musical Accompaniments

Care Package Incoming:

Care package incoming:

How many have laid waste to your life when you weren’t aware of what you were losing,

how much was wasted in pointless grief,

foolish joy, greedy desire, and social amusements—

how little of your own was left to you.

You will realize you are dying before your time!

— Seneca, On the Brevity of Life

I’m not going to talk about grief because I’ve honestly had enough of it right now — I’m at my limit, and this is what I feel this speaks of here — knowing our LIMITS.

“How little of your own was left to you?”

There is none other to blame than ourselves if we find ourselves gutted and drained by the world and its people — people and the world will give whatever you take them, it is our responsibility to delegate what we say yes and no to — and stick to it as well. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.

For some reason, this quote brings this song to mind. Enjoy yourself this sonic accompaniment if you’re not interested in entertaining various wastes of your life force and time:

I will keep constant watch over myself and—most usefully—will put each day up for review.

For this is what makes us evil — that none of us looks back upon our own lives.

We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past.

— Seneca, Moral Letters

I’ve noticed quite a bit in the last few weeks — it is not so important in what I think I see in the outside world, because I cannot control it. It is more important what I can notice within myself, unhelpful and destructive and/or maladaptive reactions and impulses that need changing.

The world is gonna world, what do I want to do with what I can control? I notice myself going off the rails when I am tending more to the fires around me as opposed to the fire within.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

– Viktor Frankl

Restraint of pen and tongue when angry is crucial to damage control. Do I fail at that often? Yes. Am I better about it today than I ever have been in my life? Yes.

So, we can make progress. No one is blocking us from that except ourselves.

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.

Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.

-Epictetus

This is fantastic news, as we have the power to get out of our own way.

I know it feels like baptizing an epileptic cat, but it can be done.

Two songs come to mind in regards to staying in your own lane and aligning yourself with your core values — not the noise of the world. I’ll add those.

Final Thoughts:

Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus— and live it according to Nature.

Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?

-Marcus Aurelius

This quote alone is… holy shit.

For those of us who are so versed in grief/death to the point where we halfway feel like we’re in the ancestral realm and halfway feel like we’re on earth, and often fully feel like a ghost — there’s a very interesting way to leverage that experience in bringing oneself back to life, using the experience itself.

If we already feel like life is over and we’re already dead, hey, let’s see this all as a bonus round / new chapter and see what happens when we prioritize harmonizing with Life, or as Beinsa Douno speaks of, Harmonizing of the Human Soul?

Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.

-Epictetus

I will.

I send you the friendly challenge of doing it too.

Here’s my version (via the internet), the rest I will go about in real life. Goodbye for today.

Final songs come from me — also, let me know in the comments when you want the official music video for Algorithm Ghetto to drop?

We worked hard to make the video something that could truly visually story tell the amount of ground covered in 4 minutes:

and then there’s this for your vibes and long drives: