Laconicism for the Win

Hey beautiful people,

The ‘Becoming a Live Player’ journey starts this Thursday. I wrote a piece for Rebel Wisdom about the journey here. The piece discusses the origins of the ‘Sensemaking Web’ and the opportunity landscape we are faced with. It has gotten some pretty good feedback thus far. Illustrations are from Brandon Dayton.

Tomorrow’s events:

• Stewards on Stewardship w/ Luea Ritter and Nancy Zamierowski. May 12th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.

• Shadow Sensemaking w/ Arran Rogerson and Alyssa Polizzi. May 12th, 19th, and 26th @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.

Newly posted events:

• Doomer Optimism: Antifragility, Localism, and the Limits of Labels w/ Joe Norman. May 25th, 2021 @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.

• Dunbar's Number w/ Robin Dunbar. May 27th @ 12:00 PM ET. Patreon event.

• Intuition and Anticipation in Navigating Complexity w/ Dave Snowden. May 31st @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.

• Counterculture Is Not Dead, It's Just Sleeping in a Dark Forest w/ Caroline Busta. June 3rd at 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.

• Moral Imaginations w/ Phoebe Tickell. June 10th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.

***

May 11th, 2021

The present may belong to the verbally intelligent but the future belongs to the intuitively intelligent. 

I intuitively sense there are a bunch of fancy arguments to back this claim up, but I am writing this late in the day, and I am also writing this a little drunk, so I will forgo a longer entry today. I will make some more claims though...   

Sometimes being precise with your words is being parsimonious with your words, especially with all the reality tunnels zipping around. Talking too much can be more confusing than illuminating these days.

The Stoics would agree. They were laconic, not loquacious. They laconically advocated for a laconicism as well. Some quotes ...

The reason we have two ears and only one mouth, is that we may hear more and speak less.

This quote is from our homeboy Zeno of Citium. He started the whole Stoicism thing, and I am kind of weirdly looking like him these days. Another quote… 

Choose as a guide one whom you will admire more when you see him act than when you hear him speak.

That was from Seneca the Younger. Here is one from Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor ...

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

I love that one. I also love my favourite Stoic quote, which is from Epictetus, the philosopher-slave ... 

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

The subtext with all of these quotes is this: be argus-eyed around the verbally articulate, as sophistry could be nearby. 

The clearnet clearly favors and rewards the verbally articulate, and having high verbal intelligence must be a tempting thing, because words can be a powerful thing, and powerful things can be tempting.

***

Support The Stoa @ patreon.com/the_stoa

Receive coaching from Peter and others @ thestoa.ca/coaches