Stoicism Essay Rough Draft

Stoicism Jackson Flinn Stoicism ​is ​the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint. An ancient greek philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno Of Citium and supported by the teachings from greek stoics such as Seneca The Younger and Epictetus. ​The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine reason that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain. Stoics believed that you can take a different viewpoint, and change your life based on the outlook. As the great Marcus Aurelius said “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” like the other stoics, Marcus believed and taught that you cannot control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to what happens to you. I believe in this concept to the fullest. “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” - Viktor Frankl. I first discovered Stoicism after a conversation with a peer, in which I was described as apathetic. I didn’t fully know the definition of apathetic, so I researched the word. “Showing or feeling no interest, enthusiasm, or concern.” - Merriam-Webster Dictionary. As I read the definition, a suggestion for similar words appeared near it; Stoic. I continued down a rabbit whole of new information, eventually making it to stoicism. The concept intrigued me, because I realized I had always been practicing a rather laissez faire version of stoicism. Although similar, Stoicism and Apathy have a very distinct line between the two; Apathy is not caring or being interested, whereas Stoicism is accepting the events, and making a calculated response Upon further research I became more and more interested in Stoicism. I eventually decided to incorporate it into my pilot studies, and furthermore, my life. Section I: Early Beginnings Founded in the early 3rd century B.C. by Zeno Of Citium, the word stoic comes from the word “Stoa” Which is the the great hall in Athens in which the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno gave the founding lectures of the Stoic school of philosophy. The ideology was influenced by Socrates and the Cynics. It caused great debates with the Skeptics, the Epicureans and the Academics. The name comes from the Stoa Poikile, or painted porch, an open market in Athens where the original Stoics (Like Zero Of Citium etc) used to meet and teach philosophy. During the period of the Empire, Stoicism moved to Rome where is prospered. Some emperors tried to persecute it, such as Vespasian and Domitian,

there were also emperors that tried to live it, and openly embraced the concept, most notably Marcus Aurelius. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “ Stoicism is a Hellenistic eudaimonic philosophy, which means that we can expect it to be influenced by its immediate predecessors and contemporaries, as well as to be in open critical dialogue with them. These includes Socratic thinking, as it has arrived to us mainly through the early Platonic dialogues; the ​Platonism​ of the Academic school, particularly in its Skeptical phase; ​Aristotelianism​ of the Peripatetic school; ​Cynicism​; Skepticism​; and ​Epicureanism​. It is worth noting, in order to put things into context, that a quantitative study of extant records concerning known philosophers of the ancient Greco-Roman world (Goulet 2013) estimates that the leading schools of the time were, in descending order: Academics-Platonists (19%), Stoics (12%), Epicureans (8%), and Peripatetics-Aristotelians (6%).” Section II: Evolution For the most part, Ancient Stoicism is recognized in three major phases; The early stoa, starting with Zeno of Citium, and lasting until Chrysippus, the middle stoa, involving Panaetius and Posidonius in the late II and I B.C.E, in the rear comes the late stoa, during the Roman Imperial Period, the era I focus studies in. During this period, the Stoics Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus and the Roman Emperor and Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, were very prevalent and influential. .

Section III: Stoicism And Christianity Neither Stoicism or Christianity guarantee that God or the Gods do your will. Which is really a form of operational magic, but rather that y​ou do God’s will​, and you accept the will of God and try to serve it. Also, an important idea in both Stoicism and Christianity is the question of what is the most important thing in your life. What do you serve? What is your god or master? Because everything will follow from that. There’s a similar idea in Plato – if you make public approval your God, then you make yourself the slave of the public, and will have to dance to their tune. If you make money your god, then you will have to dance to that tune, and bend and twist in accordance with your master.

Section IV: My Discover During a discussion with a peer, in which we described first impressions of each other, I was described as rather apathetic. I wasn’t familiar with the word so I Googled it, and the description

seemed interesting; showing or feeling no interest, enthusiasm, or concern. That didn’t feel right, although understandable. I thought of myself as someone who didn’t have interest in little, insignificant things like gossip and drama. In High School, drama and gossip is a large part of the culture, so my lack of interest can easily be taken as apathetic. Well, the search of apathetic brought me to the search of Apathy; lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern. Google offered me some suggestions that were similar to this, and one of them was the word Stoic, and further, Stoicism. I was intrigued, and I began to like where this was going, it seemed to fit my personality, and I discovered that I was already somewhat of a Stoic. Stoicism; the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint. The more I researched, my love for Stoicism grew. I became slightly obsessed with the concept of only calculated responses and self-discipline. I began implementing the thought process in my daily routine and I noticed an immediate increase in productivity, because little things were no longer affecting my attitude. I was able to produce better work, and I was able to produce much more work. Section V: My Experience My experience has been an interesting, eventful and amazing road. When I began I still didn’t have a good idea of what stoicism meant. I was under the impression that you had to bottle up your emotions and try to think through it and deal with any problems all by yourself.