is a stoic life worth living or should we indulge ourselves

[Dr. Oza]

ive recently started rereading much of marcus aurelius's meditations.. all of it seems good advice except for that he advocates a stoic approach.. to be free of extrenous desire.. to not indulge in what most men indulge... and i can see the merits

but it gets me thinking, in living life so restrained.. is one debilitating himself?

in self-indulgence and in pursuit of desires and pleasures.. done at a non-destructive level.. is this not the route to happiness?

depends on your indulgence?

family..

women...

drugs..

business...

money...

each one of these could be the object of ones desires... and in pursuing that.. is one not happy in their own personal way?


i mean.. Meditations would say that we should above all imitate the logos found within nature.. the unwanting studious devotion to reason ... working for what is needed and not more , not less...



but how is one to live...

in a stoic life.. say a man lives in a hovel.. farming ... say that man is a billionaire but has never spent his money.. has never pursued his indulgence... is that not pitiful?

i dont know.. and in any regard i cant know.. but thoughts, explanations?

[Vizsla]

You should study the Epicureans then.

I like the meditations but I feel that wisdom is usually not transferable. Meaning you don’t really understand it until you’ve lived it. Once you’ve lived and learned you don’t need to read about it anymore because you already know it. I like to think old Marcus would have said something similar.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Aldous Huxley called the sort of thing you say "leads to happiness" as a sort of "self-transcendence downwards", in which people break the tight barriers of their mere existential and inauthentic being but actually get worse and even more impotent for it (drugs, alcohol, excessive sex and such). On the other hand, the non-Dionysian approach advocated by the Meditations and Stoic philosophy in general are far harder to attain, but in the end, you'll be able to break existential barriers and achieve full possession of yourself without giving in to purely external agents and the assorted dependency and utter powerlessness and vulnerability that their pursuit ensures, as ultimately all slavery to impulses and desires does.

http://www.psychedelic-library.org/loudun.htm

And no, for one thing is to live as a hermit or in pure asceticism (which is encouraged by some such philosophies), the other is to learn and practice their tenets in a way that you can make use of things and enjoy yourself without attaching yourself deeply to them and to other persons. The nature of desire is such, that it is ultimately unquenchable - indulge in it, and you risk becoming a slave to it, being forced to do it over and over again the more you let your sense-based cravings take control of you.

The main Stoic tenet seems to be that all true happiness is to be found solely on your own being, and never in external things, so someone who manages to take their teachings to their ultimate consequence can, at least hypothetically, not feel the urge to enjoy anything like a "mere mortal". At least that's an archetype.

[Claudius Gothicus]

Just indulge yourself with the latest Ipod, go and get as much sex as you can and earn as much money as you're allowed too. Thinking about meaning is for people with too much time in their hands

[Col. Tartleton]

The way I see it is stoicism is based on self denial. Epicurean philosophy is based on doing the things that make you happy.

I think it depends on whether you view the purpose of life to be happiness or the lack of sadness. An Epicurean is always happy. A stoic is never sad. The difference is in the eye of the beholder.

[Dr. Oza]

epicureans you say.. hmm.. i shall seek them out

[Elfdude]

Epicurean hedonism is a beautiful philosophy. Personally I mix that, and some Buddhist philosophy plus a good helping of cooperative dynamics to get to my mutualism philosophy.

[Silver Guard]

Everything in moderation

People who deal exclusively in excess die young, it may not be a statistical fact but it's apparent everywhere around you, especially in the media. They die young and often unhappy and unfulfilled, constantly striving for more excess and further extremes, some even put a shotgun shell through their heads.

Comparatively stoic people are often more content. Admittedly not driven by rushes of happiness and adrenaline, but live longer more fulfilling lives. Their withdrawal however can lead to unfulfilled wishes, feelings of boredom or pointlessness (occasionally blowing up their own apartment and starting up a fight club with themselves...).

People who are truly happy are a mix. They know when to stop when it comes to excess and luxuries of pleasure, before it becomes self-destructive and future-destroying. They also know when to lie back and have a little fun instead of staying uptight and giving in to stress and monotonous lifestyles, so that their lives still have a kick.

[G-Megas-Doux]

The search for meaning is truely when you have to much time on your hands. It leads to depression if you cannot delude yourself that something is right and must be followed you realise it is unatainable and pointless and thus think the same of life. The best way to be happy is to learn to cohabit with people and achieve your needs allowing for wants to not be a binge on one thing but a sampling of many with variety being the spice of life. Of that you can trust me a Stoic life is a bad step because it is to overly self disciplining and stressfull it differs only from Nietzche in that it the later was for self being braced against everything and reliant on the self for ones own benefit and the Stoic is trying to benefit society much in a way similar to Confucius teaching. It is not healthy and it sets you up for accusations of hypocracy when you make a mistake because you take yourself more seriously then people like.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

and some Buddhist philosophy

Feel good and relaxed. More like New Age instead of "Buddhism".

Comparatively stoic people are often more content. Admittedly not driven by rushes of happiness and adrenaline, but live longer more fulfilling lives. Their withdrawal however can lead to unfulfilled wishes, feelings of boredom or pointlessness (occasionally blowing up their own apartment and starting up a fight club with themselves...).

Then they are not really "stoic" in any sense of the word. Stoicism is not about self-repression, it is about self-detachment. It includes not making a deal with samsara, but ignoring any link to it; the true Stoic, like the true Buddhist, doesn't understand the world to be a temptation to guard against. He rightfully considers the world and the existential being as worthless things which must be transcended, and can be transcended through noesis and the right spiritual practices.

People who are truly happy are a mix. They know when to stop when it comes to excess and luxuries of pleasure, before it becomes self-destructive and future-destroying. They also know when to lie back and have a little fun instead of staying uptight and giving in to stress and monotonous lifestyles, so that their lives still have a kick.

That's what the genuine Stoa or teacher of spiritual ascesis would call the "mediocrity of ordinary life".

The search for meaning is truely when you have to much time on your hands.

You're right. Maybe we should work ourselves to death, and use our scarce leisure to indulge in sensual pleasure; the thing is that when you cut off everything but the animal ideal from being a true meaning, you're not in fact freeing yourself from useless speculation, you're freeing yourself from everything except a coarse purpose, and as a result, the value of your life and your achievements will diminish.

[Claudius Gothicus]

The problem with stoicism is that it makes you deny things that you are already aware of their pleasure. Not only it ''supposedly'' leads you to a life of discipline, which ain't bad, but it also leads you to a life of unhappiness. Pleasure and will are the drives of humanity AND they are usually combined, restraining oneself from those 2 is like restraining oneself from his own humanity, from his own ''drives''. The worst part is that stoicism does make you acknowledge the possible(even if only passing) pleasure in those things.

In short, it's like a systematic teasing of one's humanity. Sometimes even masochistic.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

The problem with stoicism is that it makes you deny things that you are already aware of their pleasure. Not only it ''supposedly'' leads you to a life of discipline, which ain't bad, but it also leads you to a life of unhappiness.

No. Happiness, unhappiness - all samsara, using Buddhist terminology; the Stoic should feel neither.

Pleasure and will are the drives of humanity AND they are usually combined, restraining oneself from those 2 is like restraining oneself from his own humanity, from his own ''drives''.

Because... uhhm... That's the point? To transcend yourself from what is merely human. From what amounts in fact to slavery to sense impulses & to the chains and conformism of average life.

Fact is, that you're not truly ready to adopt either of these until you realize the futility and mediocrity of the world of becoming. The Stoic, the Buddhist, & similar practitioners, all recognize that birth and death is merely incessant repetition, that sense based impulses and the empirical self are all merely repetition and they are all external, and that they do not stem from authentic being neither lead to authentic happiness (to contradict this statement here would be to argue that men find true enjoyment in trinkets of gold), and that finally, given that everything conditioned is subject to birth & death, to create or strive for anything of the sort is meaningless and ephemeral.

The worst part is that stoicism does make you acknowledge the possible(even if only passing) pleasure in those things.

Because, pleasure can indeed be derived from the senses, but the Stoic cautions himself to attaching himself to them. He can drink wine or have pleasure, but that's not necessary for his existence even in the slightest amounts, and he can spend his entire life away from them without shedding a single tear. Detachment again is the key word.

In short, it's like a systematic teasing of one's humanity. Sometimes even masochistic.

It is the common drive of all humanity to transcend oneself, to "free" oneself. And that involves shedding one's humanity; as Aldous Huxley brilliantly stated, it either involves a downwards move, or an upwards move - the downwards move being easier, and thus being more easily practiced by the masses.

Ultimately, though, what is perfectly recognized by ideals of ascesis such as Stoicism, is that only the "enlightened few" will comprehend it enough to seek it, and even fewer will attain it. For the majority, it consists in nothing more than a set of ethical principles.

[Helm]

Try and aim somewhere in the middle.

[Saturn]

Try and aim somewhere in the middle.

[Biggreenfellow]

Depends on who you are and what defines happiness for you.

[Occultus]

I agree with Helm and Saturn, somewhere is the middle.

[Hounf of Culan]

I agree with Helm and Saturn, somewhere is the middle.

Hooray, we have Aristotelians!

[Adrian]

Enjoy, thats what I say, we only live a short time might as well enjoy

[Helm]

Thing is if you enjoy yourself too much in the short term you will enjoy yourself far less in the long term, if there is a long term you won't live for long addicted to alcohol and drugs but you will enjoy yourself. That's the balance we're talking about.

[Lantert Lurend]

I would say no if someone say "one man can have Stoic Life style or Epeacurian, but not both"
Jean Paul Sartre, the well known philosopher who wrote Nausea, said that we must escape from the world itself to find the "real myself", existence.
That easily leads to Stoic life,which keeps distance from the mundane world.
But there is a problem.
If we do what he said, we will exactly live in "island"
There will be peaceful silence but deadly silence for each other.
Inadvertantly, we must be tied with world itself.
Sartre said this paradox "engagement"(Somewhat can be interpreted as a Epeacurean life style)
In conclusion, life is a close race between in-world and out-world.
For me.. I favor in-world lifestyle more.
"Being INSIDE is better than being OUTSIDE"