site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2549 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 7, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm trying to implement more stoicism in my life. I'm now starting to do implement the Retrospective Evening Meditation from Seneca or Epictetus.

I'm a pretty reflective guy in general, but I have a hard time reviewing my full day in detail. I don't feel like I make a lot of missteps that I can hone in on but that's what even unreflective angry people would think, so I'm skeptical about my own judgement.

I'm thinking: if I got angry while in a car: I could lightly scold myself for it and then forgive myself, but I'm quite mellow. But I don't have such clear cut cases. Sometimes I get angry at myself for not being good enough at a skill (I'm renovating a house as a keyboard cowboy) but I'm also way better about that now than I was 3 months ago, because I wouldn't get angry at a child that learns how to walk.

Anyone else also doing it? I'm mostly interested in people that are relatively mellow and if you make some kind of note for the evening retrospective. (Maybe even a recorded phone memo?)

The stoics were also famous for wanting to live extremely joyous lives and practicing extreme gratitude for what they did have. Perhaps you're too mellow and could work to take more enjoyment out of life or be more grateful on the day to day?

Gratitude is the first thing I've adopted from the stoics. But that's not something I actively work on a lot lately.

That's a mistake and definitely something I can try to address in my evening retrospective.

Generally incorporating the actual practice (the meat) of stoicism instead of the intellectual masturbation (potatoes) is the hardest part.

Stoicism is a great philosophy because it's perfect to pick and choose from. Even the ancient stoics did this. Seneca and Marcus Aurelius were big on the evening retrospective meditation - Epictetus was less focused on that type of narrow practice, and more focused on general mindset/mental tools such as negative visualization. He mentions it once or twice in the Enchiridion but only in passing whereas Seneca writes paragraphs about evening meditations.

Which part of stoicism would you consider the potatoes?

I completely botched that expression. Meat and potatoes are both fundamental.

I was trying to say: Actually doing it and applying the stoic tools every day is the hardest part. I much prefer, based on observation, to read about tools of thought than to apply them. Reading about how Seneca pleading his case at his own court every evening is easier to do then doing the same.

Simple ain't easy. :-)

I agree with that! It can be very difficult. I've found physical practices like meditation/yoga to have more sticking power than purely mental devices myself.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats