Why You Want Things That Only Sound Good | Stoicism

#stoicism #stoicphilosophy #marcusaurelius Think of something you want that costs more than it should. Now say what it actually is. Not what it means, not what owning it would say about you. What it is made of. Marcus Aurelius had a habit for exactly this, and he demonstrates it on his own dinner. When we have meat before us, he writes, we receive the impression that this is the dead body of a fish, and this the dead body of a bird or of a pig. That this Falernian is only a little grape-juice. And this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed with the blood of a shell-fish. That is imperial purple, described as wool and snail blood, by the emperor, while wearing it. The instruction is narrower than it first sounds. Where there are things which appear most worthy of our approbation, we ought to lay them bare and strip them of all the words by which they are exalted. The words. Not the thing. And the reason: outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason. Chapters 0:00 The thing with the price you privately justified 1:00 The man who could have had any of it 1:48 He demonstrates it on his own dinner 2:43 Wool dyed with the blood of a shell-fish 4:06 Strip them of the words by which they are exalted 5:20 Outward show is a perverter of the reason 6:35 Why this is not cynicism 7:14 Make for thyself a definition 8:20 Ten seconds, before you can prepare one 9:41 Nothing is so productive of elevation of mind 11:21 The baths passage 12:46 The ladder of what the multitude admire 15:36 If the desire survives the plain description 17:40 What he was wearing while he wrote it Public domain: Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (tr. George Long, 1862). New video every week.