Everyone please feel free to comment below and share your experiences from the sixth day of Stoic Week!
Please post on anything to do with your practice of Stoicism today. Some questions you might consider to help with this:
- How did the morning reflective text by Marcus help to set your intentions for the day?
- How did you cultivate philanthropy today? Did you find it easy or hard?
- How central to Stoicism do you think is philanthropy and doing good to others?
- Do you have any questions?
If you are blogging about the week, or if you are doing a video diary, please also feel free to post links to those below.
http://letthesewordsanswer.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/morning-meditation-saturday/
Today is the Event day at Birkbeck College, London. It completely sold out of tickets and we have a waiting list – if you can’t come please let us know asap. For those who don’t get to the ‘Stoicism for Everyday Life’ event, we have now arranged for all the morning sessions to be filmed and parts of the different afternoon workshops. This will be edited, worked on with love and released after the event. It will be filmed by the same team who brought you the Exeter videos posted here on the blog, so they really know us and the evolution of the project. Today will be a manifestation of the new Stoic community that has grown from this project and a contemplation of the view from above. make the most of your day, go about your life mindfully and allow time for reflection.
Day Six of #StoicWeek and we are told to rise up and smell the coffee. So I did, with the help of the early morning text for reflection. I’m reminded of a trip to Inverness a few years ago when there were teenagers in the street giving out “Free Hugs”. I guess that’s what Stoic Saturday is all about. “Stoic Philanthropy” is the buzz word today but it’s not about giving away all your money like in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth or Francis of Assisi (thank goodness) but giving out all your love. Peace man! http://amybethinverness.com/2011/07/21/wanted/
“Epictetus notoriously advises his students to kiss their loved ones goodnight while telling themselves silently that they may die at any moment…” How true and apt with this next current story in mind.
It’s St Andrews Day in Scotland and there’s been a helicopter crash in the city of Glasgow reported in the news. A good human story to reflect on with Stoicism in mind. All week I’ve tried to stay away from the news but some things just jump out at you. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-25163045
I would like like to receive a copy of the Stoicism for Everyday Life. I don’t seem to have had time to study this week, even though I am retired!
Hello Anita – you can download a copy of the Handbook to look at in your own time here: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/files/2013/11/Stoic_Week_2013_Handbook.pdf Kind regards, Patrick
Such a beautiful morning sitting up in bed looking out at the trees with their golden leaves bathed in sunlight makes me want to get up and get out to celebrate this magical winter day. Contemplating my tasks for this day I realise that even if it was my last day I would not change a thing. This realisation will add joy to the day and I thank you. I am so pleased we will be able to share the day in London via the videos – what an amazing world we live in. I myself will be by the sea in Sussex today.
Planning ahead has been inordinately helpful, but I do it in the evening before I go to bed. I have always tried to sleep on plans, and sometimes I awake with completely new ideas. Thinking how the day went has migrated from bedtime to early evening when I’m peacefully cooking supper. In the morning I think about the day ahead, and also consider the previous evening’s attempts to apply Stoic thinking to my life. At some point I read comments and ‘pieces’ and see if they feel beneficial.
Does the changed pattern of thought matter?
Cultivating philanthropy is a challenge if you are isolated by a chronic health condition unable to drive and by living in a rural area like I am (v bad combination!) so the Internet becomes important but i am not really of the social media generation and my broadband is v slow anyway at 0.5Mb! So I actually found today’s lunch meditation upsetting as I just don’t have ‘all those people you encounter in your daily life’ – today I will see no one at all until my hubbie comes from home work. So then had to deal with those emotions stoically ! Would have loved to be at Birkbeck today but I can’t travel long distance due to disability so fantastic idea to video it – making this project inclusive & accessible for everyone is important i think so Thank you!
Thanks Clare – the video will be up on the blog in the next few weeks.
http://letthesewordsanswer.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/saturday-lunchtime-exercise-and-evening-reflection/
The “view from above” exercise brought back memories and feelings of my youth. I realized I had a “view from above” experience a few times in the past–though not the intentional Stoic version. I remember being outside with my father looking at the stars through a telescope. The vastness of the universe was striking; it really did make my life seem smaller. It also evoke the thoughts of how I was a tiny part of a huge, vast infinite reality. The same feeling was evoked when my family went to remote parts of the vast deserts of the American Southwest, and we looked up at the endless stars. I think that astronomers would have a great deal to say about this exercise–including youth involved with astronomy as I was with my father and his telescopes.