#170 - Massimo Piggliuci - 5 Exercises From Stoicism To Improve Your Life

“The speaker discusses reading a lot of evolutionary psychology, specifically mentioning Robert Wright's book 'The Moral Animal' and its insights on human behavior.”

“Seneca wrote a book called On the Shortness of Life. The Stoic perspective there is that we ought to live our life more or less as if we didn't know where we're actually going to be, what was our last day going to be.”

“With my friend Gregory Lopez, we have written a whole book of stoic exercises called A Handbook for New Stoics, which includes 52 different exercises.”

“Alain de Botton from the School of Life has a wonderful bit in his book, An Emotional Education, discussing the etymology of the term 'unfortunate' in ancient Athens.”

“The first book that we're reading is The Consolation of Philosophy by Boetius, which he wrote while in prison, imagining a dialogue with Lady Philosophy.”

“This book is described as the practical one with 52 exercises for people to choose from to implement stoicism.”

“This earlier book is more comprehensive, including stoic theory, history, and a small number of exercises.”

“The speaker references Seneca to emphasize the importance of a prepared mind in dealing with situations.”

“Aristotle's Ethics, for instance, the Neuquamachian Ethics is the book where the major book where Aristotle put forth his ethics.”

“The excerpt discusses Kahneman's research on the two metaphorical systems in the brain related to decision-making, referencing his bestselling book.”

“You can read the entire Meditations of Marcus Aurelius essentially as a journal, as it was his own philosophical diary.”

“This upcoming book is a 21st-century update and rewriting of Epictetus and Caridian, set to be released in September.”

“One of the bestselling books is Camus' The Plague, not surprisingly, right?”